Characterization of a novel piscidin-like antimicrobial peptide from Pseudosciaena crocea and its immune response to Cryptocaryon irritans

• A novel gill-expressed piscidin gene (Pc-pis) was identified.
• The Pc-pis exhibited potent antibacterial and antiparasitic activity.
• Pc-pis might be involved in immune defense against parasite infections.

Piscidins, important components of the innate (nonspecific) immunity system in fish, have potent, broad-spectrum antimicrobial and antiparasitic activities. In this study, we reported a novel antimicrobial cationic peptide from Pseudosciaena crocea. Although this peptide exhibited a genomic (3 exons and 2 introns) and propeptide (signal peptide, mature peptide and prodomain) organization, conserved signal peptide (22 amino acids) and consensus motif I-X5-H-X4-I-H identical to the reported fish piscidins, Pc-pis showed a relatively low overall conservation with other known piscidins, which was obviously embodied in the amino acid composition of the peptide. Pc-pis is strikingly rich in glycine residues (27.3%), which disrupted the amphipathic structure of the peptide. Relative quantitative real-time PCR revealed that Pc-pis is a typically gill-expressed peptide. The sequence analysis, structural features and tissue distribution suggested that Pc-pis was genetically related to the piscidins family and might be a novel piscidin-like antimicrobial peptide. Quantitative PCR analysis revealed that the expression of Pc-pis in the spleen, head-kidney, liver, intestine, skin and gill could be regulated during Cryptocaryon irritans infection and post C. irritans falling off, implicating a role for Pc-pis in immune defense against C. irritans and secondary bacterial infections. Synthetic Pc-pis exhibited broad-spectrum activity against bacteria, fungi and C. irritans in parasitic stages. These results provided the first evidence of piscidins antiparasitic activity against marine fish ectoparasites C. irritants trophonts and further indicated that Pc-pis might be an important component of the P. crocea innate immune system against C. irritans and secondary bacterial infections. Thus, these data provided new insights into P. crocea innate immunity against external protozoan parasite and microbial infections and facilitate the evaluation of Pc-pis as a therapeutic agent against pathogen invasion.