Anti-breast cancer synthetic peptides derived from the Anabas testudineus skin mucus fractions

• Published in: Scientific reports 2021-11, Vol.11 (1), p.23182-23182, Article 23182
• Main Authors: Najm, Ahmed Abdul Kareem, Azfaralariff, Ahmad, Dyari, Herryawan Ryadi Eziwar, Othman, Babul Airianah, Shahid, Muhammad, Khalili, Nahid, Law, Douglas, Syed Alwi, Sharifah Sakinah, Fazry, Shazrul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Antimicrobial Peptides - pharmacology; Antineoplastic Agents - pharmacology; Apoptosis; Breast Neoplasms - drug therapy; Caspase 3 - metabolism; Cell Cycle - drug effects; Cell Cycle Checkpoints - drug effects; Cell Line, Tumor; Cell Proliferation - drug effects; Computational Biology - methods; Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor - methods; Female; Fishes - metabolism; Gene Expression Profiling; Humans; Inhibitory Concentration 50; MCF-7 Cells; Mucus - metabolism; Peptides - chemistry; Peptides - pharmacology; Protein Interaction Mapping
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-02007-6

Previous study has shown the antimicrobial activities of mucus protein extracted from Anabas testudineus. In this study, we are interested in characterizing the anticancer activity of the A. testudineus antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). The mucus was extracted, fractioned, and subjected to antibacterial activity testing to confirm the fish's AMPs production. The cytotoxic activity of each fraction was also identified. Fraction 2 (F2), which shows toxicity against MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 were sent for peptide sequencing to identify the bioactive peptide. The two peptides were then synthetically produced and subjected to cytotoxic assay to prove their efficacy against cancer cell lines. The IC for AtMP1 against MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 were 8.25 ± 0.14 μg/ml and 9.35 ± 0.25 μg/ml respectively, while for AtMP2 it is 5.89 ± 0.14 μg/ml and 6.97 ± 0.24 μg/ml respectively. AtMP1 and AtMP2 treatment for 48 h induced breast cancer cell cycle arrest and apoptosis by upregulating the p53, which lead to upregulate pro-apoptotic BAX gene and downregulate the anti-apoptotic BCL-2 gene, consequently, trigger the activation of the caspase-3. This interaction was supported by docking analysis (QuickDBD, HPEPDOCK, and ZDOCK) and immunoprecipitation. This study provided new prospects in the development of highly effective and selective cancer therapeutics based on antimicrobial peptides.