Protease Inhibitors from Plants with Antimicrobial Activity

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Jin-Young Kim²  Seong-Cheol Park²  Indeok Hwang³  Hyeonsook Cheong³  Jae-Woon Nah¹  Kyung-Soo Hahm² 

[1] Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Sunchon National University, 315 Maegok, Suncheon, Korea; E-Mail:;Research Center for Proteineous Materials, Chosun University, Gwangju 501-759, Korea; E-Mails:;Department of Biotechnology and BK21 Research Team for Protein Activity Control, Chosun University, Gwangju 501-759, Korea; E-Mails:

关键词: plants;    chromatographic columns;    antimicrobial peptide;    pathogenic bacterial and fungal strains;    protease inhibitors;    novel antimicrobial agents;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms10062860

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Antimicrobial proteins (peptides) are known to play important roles in the innate host defense mechanisms of most living organisms, including plants, insects, amphibians and mammals. They are also known to possess potent antibiotic activity against bacteria, fungi, and even certain viruses. Recently, the rapid emergence of microbial pathogens that are resistant to currently available antibiotics has triggered considerable interest in the isolation and investigation of the mode of action of antimicrobial proteins (peptides). Plants produce a variety of proteins (peptides) that are involved in the defense against pathogens and invading organisms, including ribosome-inactivating proteins, lectins, protease inhibitors and antifungal peptides (proteins). Specially, the protease inhibitors can inhibit aspartic, serine and cysteine proteinases. Increased levels of trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitors correlated with the plants resistance to the pathogen. Usually, the purification of antimicrobial proteins (peptides) with protease inhibitor activity was accomplished by salt-extraction, ultrafiltration and C₁₈ reverse phase chromatography, successfully. We discuss the relation between antimicrobial and anti-protease activity in this review. Protease inhibitors from plants potently inhibited the growth of a variety of pathogenic bacterial and fungal strains and are therefore excellent candidates for use as the lead compounds for the development of novel antimicrobial agents.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2009 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.