Streptomyces as Overexpression System for Heterologous Production of an Antimicrobial Peptide

摘要

Background: Antimicrobial peptides could be used in several fields of application, and large quantities of antimicrobial peptides would be required. However, their production is very expensive; this is why a suitable production method, alternative to traditional chemical synthesis is necessary. Production of recombinant antimicrobial peptides in prokaryotic systems has demonstrated the viability of this approach. Nevertheless, expression of antimicrobial peptides in Escherichia coli an others microorganisms is potentially limited due to their toxicity to host cells and susceptibility to proteolytic degradation. As an alternative, we describe a successful antimicrobial peptide production system in Streptomyces lividans which showed to be effective for the secretion of large quantities of cationic antimicrobial peptides.