Antimicrobial silk

Abstract

Spider silk has shown potential for use as a biomaterial. If fused to antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), recombinant spider silk could be used for medical applications and reduce the need to use conventional antibiotics to battle infections. Recombinant spider silk 4RepCT was fused to the AMPs Magainin I, Lactoferricin and a synthetically derived AMP referred to as WGR. Polystyrene disks were coated with the AMP-silk fusion proteins and the disks were incubated with cultures of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, to test the AMP-silks antimicrobial activity. All AMP-silk fusion proteins significantly decreased bacterial adhesion of S. aureus to the disks after 48 hours of incubation compared to uncoated disks. The Mag- and WGR-silks were e↵ective already after 24 hours. The recombinant silk itself seemed to have an antimicrobial e↵ect by reducing bacterial adhesion of both bacterial strains to the polystyrene disks. Results indicated that addition of the AMPs improved this e↵ect on S. aurues, but not on E.coli.