Screening of Cyclotides as antimicrobial peptides from several Violaceae species

Cyclotides are plant polypeptides characterized by theirunique cyclic cysteine knot structural motif. It is thoughtthat they function primarily as defense agents in plants.But they also have variety of other biological properties,including anti-HIV, antimicrobial and cytotoxic effects.Because of their exceptional stability, they have attractedinterest as potential priming materials for proteinengineering and drug design. In the present study, wedetermined the cyclotides content of the Violaceae family.The samples collected from Zanjan and Total DNA wasextracted by CTAB buffer. Forward and reverse primeragainst conserve sequence in Vbc family of violaceaewere designed and used to determine Vbc gene fromViola ignobilis, Viola occulta and Viola odorata byPCR amplification of the Vbc gene. Results showed thepresence of Vbc gene for the first time in these species.The samples were collected from nearly same location;therefore they have similar biological properties. It canbe suggested that the environmental conditions stronglyaffect on cyclotide content of Violaceae.

Keywords:

cyclotides , Violaceae , Vbc gene , PCR