Membrane potential enhances membrane damage induced by antimicrobial peptide lactoferricin B

What is it about?

In this paper, we investigated the effect of membrane potential on the interaction of the antimicrobial peptide, lactoferricin B (LfcinB) with E. coli cells and their spheroplasts and also giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) composed of E. coli polar lipids (E. coli lipid-GUVs).

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Why is it important?

We found that LfcinB induced rapid leakage of fluorescent probes from E. coli cells and their spheroplasts and that this leakage was greatly suppressed by the removal of membrane potential. LfcinB also induced local rupture of E. coli lipid-GUVs to induce rapid leakage of fluorescent probes and the rate constant of rupture of GUVs increased with an increase in negative membrane potential. These data directly indicate for the first time that LfcinB-induced damage of bacterial plasma membrane and E. coli lipid -GUVs and consequent rapid leakage were greatly enhanced by the negative membrane potential.