| Summary: | 9th International Symposium on Aquatic Animal Health (ISAAH 9th), “Enhancing aquatic animal health towards One Health”, Universidad Católica de Chile, 5-8 de Septiembre, 2022 Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) show extraordinary diversity in sequence and structure and, hence, in mode of action. Among them, NK-lysins are attracting special attention because of their broad-spectrum antimicrobial, but also antitumor, activity. NK-lysin orthologs have been identified in all vertebrate groups. The tertiary structure of these peptides shows helical regions stabilized by disulfide bridges. It also exhibits a face with abundant lysine residues, responsible for its interaction with anionic lipid membranes. In our previous reports, the peptide corresponding to such region in the turbot (Scophthalmus maximus) ortholog (Nkl71-100) showed membrane-disrupting activity against the parasite Philasterides dicentrarchi, as well as inhibition of the spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV) infection in vitro, via the hampering of the pHdependent fusion step of its entry phase. In this sense, biophysical data have shown that the Nkl71-100 peptide interacts preferentially with anionic phosphatidylserine lipid bilayers at acidic pH. The present study aims to investigate whether such effect is extensible to other fish viruses with the same entry strategy. For this task, the susceptibility of a diverse battery of fish viruses to Nkl71-100 has been determined in vitro. In general, the results obtained corroborate the proposed hypothesis to explain the mode of action of the peptide. In addition, SVCV and tilapia lake virus (TiLV) particularly showed high susceptibility to this treatment, while the effect on cyprinid herpesvirus 3 (CyHV-3) was only present in higher concentration and common carp paramyxovirus (CCPV) entry was not affected. In conclusion, apart from the selective antiviral activity of NK-lysin, the fusion step of the viral entry phase is postulated as promising target for the treatment of some viruses with high economic impact on ...
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