Title: :Design and synthesis of cyclic Acyldepsipeptide analogues with increased antimicrobial activity

Biography:

Sinazo Cobongela obtained her Masters at the age of 23 years from the University of KwaZulu Natal and currently doing her PhD at the school of Chemistry, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. She is a Scientist at the Departments of Science and Innovation/Mintek Nanotechnology Innovation Centre (NIC), Randburg, South Africa. She is in charge of MinNanoGold® and MinPeptides® under the Biolabels unit at NIC.

Abstract

Over 480 000 cases of multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) occur every year globally, 9% of them being affected by extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis [1]. The treatment of MDR/XDR-TB is unfortunately long, toxic and expensive, and the success rate largely unsatisfactory. The emerging resistance of most pathogens to currently available antibiotics is raising an urgent need for new and effective antibiotic drugs. Over the years, peptides have been promising therapeutic agents for various diseases like cancer, cardiovascular, diabetes and others. There is an escalating attention towards synthetic analogues of natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) as potential effective antibiotics with novel mechanism to combat the bacterial resistance problem. Recent findings show a promising future for AMPs as active drug against multidrug resistant bacteria [2].Chemistry and biology of peptides have seen a renaissance in this century as many of the peptide-based therapeutics have entered the market and many more are in the different phases of clinical trials [3]. This study will focus on the synthesis of novel antimicrobial peptides and/or peptidomimetics ADEP A54556 factor A analogues and these will be tested for their antibacterial and anti-mycobacterial activity using different bacterial strains. Toxicity of the peptide analogues will be determined by the MTS cell viability colorimetric assay and xCELLigence. Wound healing properties of the analogues will be determined by scratch assay using different skin cells.