Maria Ricci, Kata Horváti, Tünde Juhász, Imola Szigyártó, György Török, Fanni Sebák, Andrea Bodor, László Homolya, Judit Henczkó, Bernadett Pályi, Tamás Mlinkó, Judith Mihály, Bilal Nizami, Zihuayuan Yang, Fengming Lin, Xiaolin Lu, Loránd Románszki, Attila Bóta, Zoltán Varga, Szilvia Bősze, Ferenc Zsila, Tamás Beke-Somfai
Here it is demonstrated how some anionic food additives commonly used in our diet, such as tartrazine (TZ), bind to DHVAR4, an antimicrobial peptide (AMP) derived from oral host defense peptides, resulting in significantly fostered toxic activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, but not against mammalian cells. Biophysical studies on the DHVAR4-TZ interaction indicate that initially large, positively charged aggregates are formed, but in the presence of lipid bilayers, they rather associate with the membrane surface...
March 2, 2020: Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics