Susceptibility of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to antimicrobial peptides from amphibian skin, dermaseptin, and derivatives

We evaluated the antimicrobial effect of antimicrobial peptides from frog skin belonging to the dermaseptin family against reference and clinical Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains, including penicillin-resistant strains. Dermaseptin S4 exhibited anti-N. gonorrhoeae activity against all strains with MICs ranging between 10 and 100 μg/mL. We then used derivatives of DS4 and determined the anti-N. gonorrhoeae activity of each of analogs. All the derivatives showed antimicrobial activity. Among the different molecules tested, we found that dermaseptins K4S4 (1–16)a and K4S4 (1–28) were the more potent to inhibit N. gonorrhoeae growth with MIC of 10 μg/mL against all strains.