Characterization of a novel antimicrobial peptide with chiting-biding domain from Mytilus coruscus

• A novel mussel antimicrobial peptide with chitin-biding domain (mytichitin-CB) was characterized.
• Mytichitin-CB is derived from the C-terminal part of a chitotriosidase-like protein (mytichitin-1).
• Mytichitin-CB displays predominant antimicrobial activity against fungi and Gram-positive bacteria.
• The mRNA transcripts of mytichtin-1 is mainly expressed in gonad.
• The expression of mytichitin-1 reached the highest level at 12 h after challenge.

Using reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), a novel antimicrobial peptide with 55 amino acid residues was isolated from the hemolymph of Mytilus coruscus. This new antimicrobial peptide displays predominant antimicrobial activity against fungi and Gram-positive bacteria. The molecular mass and the N-terminal sequence of this peptide were analyzed by Mass Spectrometry and Edman degradation, respectively. This antimicrobial peptide, with molecular mass of 6621.55 Da, is characterized by a chitin-biding domain and by 6 Cysteine residues engaged in three intra-molecular disulfide bridges. The full-length of cDNA sequence of this new peptide was obtained by rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) and the encoded precursor was turn out to be a chitotriosidase-like protein. Therefore, we named the precursor with mytichitin-1 and the new antimicrobial peptide (designated as mytichitin-CB) is the carboxyl-terminal part of mytichitin-1. The mRNA transcripts of mytichitin-1 are mainly detected in gonad and the expression level of mytichitin-1 in gonad was up-regulated and reached the highest level at 12 h after bacterial challenge, which was 9-fold increase compared to that of the control group. These results indicated that mytichitin-1 was involved in the host immune response against bacterial infection and might contribute to the clearance of invading bacteria.