title: Antibacterial mechanism of action of arylamide foldamers.
abstract: Small arylamide foldamers designed to mimic the amphiphilic nature of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have shown potent bactericidal activity against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive strains without many of the drawbacks of natural AMPs. These foldamers were shown to cause large changes in the permeability of the outer membrane of Escherichia coli. They cause more limited permeabilization of the inner membrane which reaches critical levels corresponding with the time required to bring about bacterial cell death. Transcriptional profiling of E. coli treated with sublethal concentrations of the arylamides showed induction of genes related to membrane and oxidative stresses, with some overlap with the effects observed for polymyxin B. Protein secretion into the periplasm and the outer membrane is also compromised, possibly contributing to the lethality of the arylamide compounds. The induction of membrane stress response regulons such as rcs coupled with morphological changes at the membrane observed by electron microscopy suggests that the activity of the arylamides at the membrane represents a significant contribution to their mechanism of action.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Pennsylvania, 1010 Stellar Chance Laboratories, 422 Curie Blvd, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4860, USA.
authors.forename: Bruk
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mensa
authors.forename: Yong Ho
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sungwook
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: Gregory A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Caputo
authors.forename: William F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: DeGrado
mesh_terms: D000577:Amides / Q000494:pharmacology*; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000187:drug effects; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D000577:Amides; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents