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CRUSTACEAN ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDES |
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Principal Investigators: P. Bulet & E. Bachère
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TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
The present invention concerns antimicrobial peptides obtained from a crustacean (penaeid prawns) and having the following characteristics: a molecular mass of about 5 to 7kDa; a pHi not less than 9; an N-terminal portion of about 15 to 25 amino acids rich in proline; and a C-terminal portion of about 20 to 30 amino acids and containing 6 cysteines organized in two doublets and forming three intramolecular disulfide bonds. The N-terminal domain is unstructured, in contrast to the C-terminal segment that is a highly constrained and well-structured domain. This structure suggests that the two domains may have different/complementary biological properties. The invention also concerns the nucleic acid sequences coding for the said peptides and enabling their production by genetic engineering or chemical synthesis.
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