Effect of membrane potential of the membrane damage induced by the antimicrobial peptide lactoferricin B

    Farzana et al have published the paper entitled with “Membrane potential is vital for rapid permeabilization of plasma membrane and lipid bilayers by the antimicrobial peptide lactoferricin B” (J. Biol. Chem., 294, 10449-10462 (2019)) [Abstract]. In this paper, we found that antimicrobial peptide, lactoferricin B (LfcinB) induced rapid leakage of fluorescent probes from E. coli cells and their spheroplasts and that this leakage was greatly suppressed by the removal of membrane potential. LfcinB also induced local rupture of giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) composed of E. coli polar lipids (E. coli lipid-GUVs) to induce rapid leakage of fluorescent probes and the rate constant of rupture of GUVs increased with an increase in negative membrane potential. These data directly indicate for the first time that LfcinB-induced damage of bacterial plasma membrane and E. coli lipid -GUVs and consequent rapid leakage were greatly enhanced by the negative membrane potential.