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Introduction
Magainin are a class of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) found in the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis.
AMPs consists of 10-50 amino acids, and are produced by Eukaryotes, as part of their defence mechanism from bacteria. For informatoin about AMP you can visit the Proteopedia page Antimicrobial peptides
They were discovered by Dr. Michael Zasloff and first reported in 1987.
Magainin and Magainin 2
Magainin and Magainin 2 were discovered together, and posses very similar sequences, of 23 Amino Acid long.
Magainin: Gly-Ile-Gly-Lys-Phe-Leu-His-Ser-Ala-Gly-Lys-Phe-Gly-Lys-Ala-Phe-Val-Gly-Glu-Ile-Met-Lys-Ser
magainin 2: Gly-Ile-Gly-Lys-Phe-Leu-His-Ser-Ala-Lys-Lys-Phe-Gly-Lys-Ala-Phe-Val-Gly-Glu-Ile-Met-Asn-Ser
When the only difference is the 22th amino acid, Lys for Magainin and Here we will debate abot Magainin 2 properties.
Structural highlights
The mechanism of how magainin 2 works is approximated to be the pore model, of which each single unit bind to the membrane and form a small pore, and when a few units bind to the membrane this way, the insides of the cell leak outside and the cell dies. Magainin 2 structure allows it to do so:
Magainin 2, As typical to all AMPs, Is rich with that allow it to interact with Bacterial membranes, that are negatively charged in phosiological pH, and rich with that allow it to interact with the membrane's phospholipids.
We can see that the residues are organised in it's alpha helix in a way that one side contains all hydrophobic residues, and the other side contains all cationic residues. this probably helps Magainin 2 to bind to the bacterial membrane and perform it's antimicrobial action.
Crystalization of Ala-Magainin
So far we had shown Magainin 2 structure based only on NMR findings, Because helical AMPs crystallography is limited, since it is hard to form crystals.
In the Hypuka et al., 2013, In order to perform crystallization of Magainin 2, changes in the sequence were maid, and Ala-Magainin 2 was contsructed. In Ala-magainin one Ser (S) and two Gly (G) residues have been changed to Ala (A) in order to increase helical propensity.
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