Recombinant expression, purification and antimicrobial activity of a novel antimicrobial peptide PaDef in Pichia pastoris

- The recombinant defensin PaDef was for the first time expressed in Pichia pastoris.
- The optimal culture condition for recombinant PaDef expression was determined.
- The recombinant PaDef was produced with a yield of 79.6 μg/ml medium.
- The recombinant PaDef inhibited both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.
- Escherichia coli (ATCC 10305) was extremely sensitive to the recombinant PaDef.

The antimicrobial peptide PaDef was isolated from Mexican avocado fruit and was reported to inhibit the growth of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus in 2013. In this study, an N-terminal 6 × His tagged recombinant PaDef (rPaDef) with a molecular weight of 7.5 KDa, for the first time, was expressed as a secreted peptide in Pichia pastoris. The optimal culture condition for rPaDef expression was determined to be incubation with 1.5% methanol for 72 h at 28 °C under pH 6.0. Under this condition, the amount of the rPaDef accumulation reached as high as 79.6 μg per 1 ml of culture medium. Once the rPaDef peptide was purified to reach a 95.7% purity using one-step nickel affinity chromatography, its strong and concentration-dependent antimicrobial activity was detected to be against a broad-spectrum of bacteria of both Gram-negative and Gram-positive. The growth of these bacterial pathogens was almost completely inhibited when the rPaDef peptide was at a concentration of as low as 90 μg/ml. In summary, our data showed that rPaDef derived from Mexican avocado fruit can be expressed and secreted efficiently when P. pastoris was used as a cell factory. This is the first report on heterologous expression of PaDef in P. pastoris and the approach described holds great promise for antibacterial drug development.