Antimicrobial peptides as new recognition molecules for screening challenging species

The goal of this study was to evaluate binding of four targets of biodefense interest to immobilized antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in biosensor assays. Polymyxins B and E, melittin, cecropins A, B, and P, parasin, bactenecin and magainin-1, as well as control antibodies, were used as capture molecules for detection of Cy3-labeled Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEE), vaccinia virus, Coxiella burnetti and Brucella melitensis. Although VEE, vaccinia virus and C. burnetti did not show any binding activity to their corresponding capture antibodies, B. melitensis bound to immobilized anti-Brucella monoclonal antibodies. The majority of the immobilized AMPs included in this study bound labeled VEE, vaccinia virus and C. burnetti in a concentration-dependent manner, and B. melitensis bound to polymyxin B, polymyxin E, and bactenecin. No binding was observed on immobilized magainin-1. In contrast to all bacterial targets tested to date, VEE and vaccinia virus demonstrated similar patterns of binding to all peptides. While the direct assay is generally replaced by a sandwich assay for analysis of real-world samples, direct binding experiments are commonly used to characterize specificity and sensitivity of binding molecules. In this case, they clearly demonstrate the capability of AMPs as recognition molecules for four biothreat agents.