Design and Synthesis of a Novel Antimicrobial Peptide Targeting β-catenin in Human Breast Cancer Cell lines

Antimicrobial peptides which play a vital role in an innate immune defense mechanism of various organisms can be regarded as novel therapeutic agents for targeted therapy to cure cancer. In the present study, a novel antimicrobial peptide which has a prominent anticancer property was identified by investigating the binding efficiency of it with the target protein, β-catenin, and named as SKACP003. Further SKACP003 was synthesized chemically and its cytotoxic effect against the following breast cancer cell lines, namely, MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-453 were explored. It was observed that SKACP003 induced dose-dependent cytotoxicity in all the above mentioned cell lines. Moreover, by using the AO/EB, Hoechst, and JC1 staining procedures we recokned that the peptide SKACP003 brought out effective morphological changes, apoptosis, and mitochondrial membrane potential loss, respectively, on the three cell lines considered. In addition to that, there was a great extent of DNA damage noticed in the cell lines concerned with the aid of comet assay. Altogether, we conclude that the anticancer property of SKACP003 can be meticulously invoked, after further evaluations at the molecular level to design a new valiant drug, to cure breast cancer.