Hadis Fathizadeh - Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, I.R. Iran
Davoud Esmaeili - Department of Microbiology and Applied Microbiology Research Center, Systems biology and poisonings Institute, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Mahmood Saffari - Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, I.R. Iran
Rezvan Moniri - Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, I.R. Iran
Foroogh Nemati - Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, I.R. Iran

Background and Aim : Cancer is one of the most causes of deaths all over the world, although improvements in its treatment and recognition. Due to the limitations of common anticancer methods, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, attention has been drawn to other anticancer compounds, especially natural peptides such as bacteriocins.Methods : In this study, we used a combination of two bacteriocins, colicin E۱ and enterocin A, against AGS gastric cancer cell lines. After conducting bioinformatics design and confirming the expression of the desired peptide with Western blot, in the next step, we applied MTT assay, real-time PCR and flow cytometry tests to investigate the anticancer properties of fusion peptide. This is the first report that the cell growth inhibitory activity of the enterocin A in combination with colicin E۱ against AGS human cancer cells.Results : The results of this study showed that this fusion peptide at a concentration of ۶۰ μg/ml and ۲۴ hours was able to kill half of the tested cancer cells, and treatment of the cells with this concentration increased the expression of bax and caspase ۳ genes and reduced the expression of bacl-۲ in ۲۴ hours. Flow cytometry analysis of annexin V-FITC/propidium iodide results also showed that our peptide was able to induce apoptosis in treated cells compared with control.Conclusion : Taken together, enterocin A-colicin E۱ (ent A-col E۱) can be considered as a good candidate for anticancer therapies.

Bacteriocins; Enterocin A; Colicin E۱; Anticancer activity; Apoptosis