Antimicrobial Peptide and E. coli Membrane Interactions
- Research Team
- Thomas Piggot, Nils Berglund
- Investigators
- Syma Khalid
Top view and side view of Polymyxin B1 inserting into the E. coli inner membrane
With an alarming number of bacterial strains showing resistance to modern antibiotic treatments it is essential that we advance in the field of novel antibiotic research. Through investigating the mechanism by which naturally occurring antibacterial proteins disrupt bacterial membranes we can discover new ways of fighting bacteria I work with two antimicrobials, Melittin and Polymyxin B1 (PMB). Although it is known that these AMPs permeate the bacterial cell membrane, the mechanism through which it does so is still in debate. Using the molecular dynamics simulation software GROMACS, I can simulate the interaction between the AMPs and cell membrane and study the interactions on an atomic level. Through our research we have been able to determine that the addition of PMB to the bacterial inner membrane (IM) causes changes in its physical properties; we suspect that these changes are key to the disruption of the membrane. Thanks to Iridis we can simulate on a μs timescale allowing us to see the insertion of the AMPs in the bacterial membrane.
Categories
Life sciences simulation: Bioinformatics, Biomolecular simulations
Simulation software: Gromacs
Visualisation and data handling software: Antimicrobial Interaction with Cell Membranes
Computational platforms: Iridis, Mac OS X
Transdisciplinary tags: Complex Systems, Scientific Computing