In addition, we tried to correlate the observed grouping with the biological activity of each group. This model was validated with a series click here of other polycationic peptides from other animal origins. The amino acid sequences of 166 peptides from the venoms and hemolymph of Hymenoptera insects (bees, wasps and ants) were obtained from UNIPROT (http://www.uniprot.org) and NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), and their sequences, numbering and names are shown in Supplemental Table

1 (supplementary content). The physico-chemical properties were calculated by Protparam (http://ca.expasy.org/tools/protparam.html), Peptide Property Calculator (http://www.peptideresource.com/software.html), Boman index (http://aps.unmc.edu/AP/prediction/prediction_main.php), alpha helix (%) by Consensus Data Mining secondary structure prediction (CDM) (http://gor.bb.iastate.edu/cdm/), and Karplus

& Schulz Flexibility Prediction (http://tools.immuneepitope.org/tools/bcell/iedb_input). To validate the model constructed for the Hymenoptera peptides, 80 peptides from other organisms were used, and their sequences, numbering, BIBW2992 ic50 names and the supporting literature are shown in Supplemental Table 2 (supplementary content). The physicochemical parameters calculated for each peptide sequence were grand average Cell Cycle inhibitor of hydropathicity (GRAVY), aliphatic index, isoelectric point (pI), net charges, number of amino acid residues, number of disulfide bonds, flexibility, alpha helix (%), and Boman index (kcal/mol). The aliphatic index of a

protein is calculated according to the formula [24]: Aliphatic index=X(Ala)+aX(Val)+b[X(Ile)+X(Leu)]Aliphatic index=X(Ala)+aX(Val)+b[X(Ile)+X(Leu)] – X(Ala), X(Val), X(Ile), and X(Leu) are mole percent (100 × mole fraction) of alanine, valine, isoleucine, and leucine, respectively. Boman index is an estimate of the potential of peptides/proteins to bind to other proteins and is the sum of the free energies of the amino acid residue side chains, divided by the total number of amino acid residues; this index is expressed as kcal/mol [5]. Among all the peptides, a lower index value indicates that the peptide likely has more antibacterial activity without many side effects, whereas a higher index value indicates that the peptide is multifunctional with hormone-like activities. The index values for the defensins are in the intermediate range [5]. The Karplus & Schulz Flexibility Prediction is a tool for the selection of peptide antigens [26]. For the estimation of alpha helix percentage we used the CDM prediction.