Rh. Tailor et al., A NOVEL FAMILY OF SMALL CYSTEINE-RICH ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDES FROM SEED OF IMPATIENS-BALSAMINA IS DERIVED FROM A SINGLE PRECURSOR PROTEIN, The Journal of biological chemistry, 272(39), 1997, pp. 24480-24487
Four closely related peptides were isolated from seed of lmpatiens bal
samina and were shown to be inhibitory to the growth of a range of fun
gi and bacteria, while not being cytotoxic to cultured human cells, Th
e peptides, designated Ib-AMP1, Ib-AMP2, Ib-AMP3, and Ib-AMP4, are 20
amino acids long and are the smallest plant-derived antimicrobial pept
ides isolated to date, The Ib-AMPs (I. balsaminn antimicrobial peptide
s) are highly basic and contain four cysteine residues which form two
intramolecular disulfide bonds. Searches of protein data bases have fa
iled to identify any proteins with significant homology to the peptide
s described here, Characterization of isolated cDNAs reveals that all
four peptides are encoded within a single transcript, The predicted Ib
-AMP precursor protein consists of a prepeptide followed by 6 mature p
eptide domains, each flanked by propeptide domains ranging from 16 to
35 amino acids in length, Such a primary structure with repeated alter
nating basic mature peptide domains and acidic propeptide domains has,
to date, not been reported in plants.