Study the Anticancer Activity of Bioactive Peptide Cecropins A Class of Bioactive peptides, Using Electrophysiological Methods

Abstract

Cecropin peptides possess antibacterial and anticancer activity making them of great therapeutic value. The general mechanism of cecropins' actions is thought to disrupt cell membranes through direct membrane-peptide interactions by studies on artificial membrane systems. We used cell-attached patch clamp to study the effects of cecropin B and its analog cecropin B-3 on different cell lines (HeLa and Hek293), showing that the tumor cell line HeLa was sensitive to CB by the formation of channel-like pores on the patch in contrast to the unsusceptible non-tumor cell line Hek293. A comparison of surface charge and surface morphology of the two cells gave us some clues to address their different responses. The structure-function relationship of cecropin peptides at the single cell level was also discussed. Finally, in order to improve the throughput of current patch clamp method, a patch clamp chip prototype based on MEMS has been proposed and characterized.