Design, in silico modeling, and in vitro evaluation of a novel antimicrobial peptide (QLSNGLFVDYLWW)

Sergey Tikhonov,  Olga Babich,  Natalya Tikhonova,  Irina Chernukha,  Mukesh Kumar Awasthi,  Stanislav Sukhikh   

Sergey Tikhonov1,2, Olga Babich3, Natalya Tikhonova4, Irina Chernukha5, Mukesh Kumar Awasthi6, Stanislav Sukhikh7

1Department of Food Engineering of Agrarian Production, Ural State Agrarian University, Ekaterinburg, Russia.

2Department of Higher School of Biotechnology, Ural State Forestry Engineering University, Yekaterinburg, Russia.

3Scientific and Educational Center “Industrial Biotechnologies,” Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad, Russia.

4Department of Food Engineering of Agricultural Production, Ural State Agricultural University, Yekaterinburg, Russia.

5Experimental Clinic-Laboratory of Biologically Active Substances of Animal Origin, Federal Scientific Center of Food Systems Named after V.M. Gorbatov, Moscow, Russia.

6College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Shaanxi, China.

7Scientific and Educational Center “Industrial Biotechnologies,” Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad, Russia.

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Published:  Mar 21, 2026

DOI: 10.7324/JABB.2026.264169
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Abstract

The creation and use of specialized food products, including those for personalized nutrition based on food peptides of various functional orientations, are limited due to their proteolysis in the gastrointestinal tract and the denaturation of peptides resulting from the heat treatment of food products during production. The study aimed to perform molecular dynamics modeling, to synthesize peptides using molecular transplantation, and to evaluate the in vitro efficacy of the resulting new-generation antimicrobial peptide. The novel hydrophobic peptide was QLSNGLFVDYLWW. The molecular weight of the peptide was 1640.861 Da. It was predicted that the peptide was lipophilic (logP 1.043 units), the VDss distribution and metabolism in the body index was 0.879 units, the CLplasma clearance was 0.879 mL/min/ kg, and the T1/2 half-life was on average from 4 to 8 h. The results clearly demonstrated the antimicrobial activity of the QLSNGLFVDYLWW peptide against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and yeast. The results allow recommending the peptide as an ingredient for creating functional food products.


Keyword:     Antimicrobial food peptide Structure-activity Molecular-peptide transplantation Molecular-dynamic modeling Antimicrobial mechanism of peptide action

Citation:

Tikhonov S, Babich O, Tikhonova N, Chernukha I, Awasthi MK, Sukhikh S. Design, in silico modeling, and in vitro evaluation of a novel antimicrobial peptide (QLSNGLFVDYLWW). J Appl Biol Biotech 2026. Article in Press. http://doi.org/10.7324/JABB.2026.264169

Copyright: Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
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