两栖类动物皮肤一直以来都是科学家眼中的资源宝库，其分泌物中含有大量未知功能的活性多肽。蛙科臭蛙属在整个两栖类动物的进化中占有重要位置，是蛙科动物从真蛙类向水蛙类进化的重要过渡类群。世界上共有约20种臭蛙，其中中国分布约有13种，这种得天独厚的资源优势得以让人们开展对臭蛙皮肤分泌物中的活性多肽研究工作。
在中国科学院昆明动物研究所生物毒素与人类疾病学科组张云研究员和李文辉副研究员的带领下，该课题组杨新旺博士在2年的时间里，从云南、贵州、四川等地采集到了中国特有的9种臭蛙，通过蛋白质组学和基因组学手段，从这9种臭蛙皮肤里面识别了728条不同的成熟抗菌肽分子，其中662条为首次报道，这些抗菌肽占了目前自然界中已知抗菌肽的30%。这些抗菌肽被分为97个家族，其中71个家族为首次命名。
研究结果揭示：1，臭蛙很可能是自然界中抗菌肽多样性最为丰富的物种；2，纠正了传统观点，证明了相同的抗菌肽在不同的臭蛙中是大量分布的；3.为新型抗菌肽药物设计提供了数目庞大的模板。
参与该项目的科研人员李文辉介绍，抗菌肽广泛分布于细菌、病毒和各种动植物体内，是生物天然免疫防御系统的重要组成部分。在耐药菌株不断产生的今天，抗菌肽的研究吸引着国内外学者目光。两栖类动物皮肤一直以来都是科学家眼中的资源宝库，其分泌物中含有大量未知功能的活性多肽。蛙科臭蛙属在整个两栖类动物的进化中占有重要位置，是蛙科动物从真蛙类向水蛙类进化的重要过渡类群。
该研究结果发表于国际杂志Journal of proteome research上。该研究工作得到国家“973”、NSFC-云南联合基金、国家自然科学基金以及中国科学院重要方向项目的资助。（生物探索）
相关英文论文摘要：
Extremely abundant antimicrobial peptides existed in the skins of nine kinds of Chinese odorous frogs
Peptide agents are regarded as hopeful candidates to solve life-threaten resistance of pathogenic microorganisms to classic antibiotics due to their unique action mechanisms. Peptidomic and genomic investigation of natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from amphibian skin secretions can provide large amount of structure-functional information to design peptide antibiotics with therapeutic potentiality. In the present study, we identified large number of AMPs from the skins of 9 kinds of Chinese odorous frogs. 80 AMPs were purified from 3 different odorous frogs and confirmed by peptidomic analysis. Our results indicated that post-translational modification of AMPs rarely happened in odorous frogs. cDNAs encoding precursors of 728 AMPs, including all the precursors of the confirmed 80 native peptides, were cloned from the constructed AMP cDNA library of 9 Chinese odorous frogs. Based on the sequence similarity of deduced mature peptides, these 728 AMPs were grouped into 97 different families in which 71 novel families were identified. Out of these 728 AMPs, 662 AMPs were novel and 28 AMPs were reported previously in other frog species. Our results revealed that identical AMPs widely distributed in odorous frogs, 49 present identified AMPs could find their identical molecules in different amphibian species. Purified peptides showed strong antimicrobial activities against 4 tested microbe strains. 23 deduced peptides were synthesized and their bioactivities, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, hemolytic, immunomodulatory and insulin-releasing activities, were evaluated. Our findings demonstrated the extreme diversity of AMPs in amphibian skins and provided plenty of templates to develop novel peptide antibiotics.
英文论文链接：https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/pr200782u?prevSearch=Odorrana%2Bwuchuanensis&searchHistoryKey=
