Growth attenuation of Vibrio parahaemolyticus by CPP-PNA conjugates

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus , a leading cause of seafood-associated gastroenteritis, is indigenous to marine environments, making approaches to limit its growth relevant to food safety. In this study, cell-penetrating peptide (CPP)-peptide nucleic acid (PNA) conjugates were evaluated as agents for attenuating growth of the tested V. parahaemolyticus strain. Five CPPs with distinct structural features were compared for their ability to support antisense PNA activity against essential and stress-related genes. Among the tested carriers, CyLop-1 anti- gyrB PNA produced the greatest growth attenuation among the conjugates tested. In contrast, targeting the conditionally essential gene recA did not suppress growth under standard conditions, highlighting the importance of target gene essentiality. The two tested mismatch variants showed reduced growth-suppressive activity, consistent with a contribution of sequence complementarity under the tested conditions. Although the gyrB target sequence was identical in the three sequences examined, no growth attenuation was observed in the tested V. vulnificus or V. cholerae strains. Collectively, these results identify factors associated with CPP-PNA activity in the tested V. parahaemolyticus strain under controlled in vitro conditions and support further investigation of CPP-PNA-associated growth attenuation.