Xenopus laevis Magainins

Class L (lytic) amphipathic helices include venoms such as bombolitins and mastoparan from Hymenoptera that are hemolytic (Argiolas and Pisano, 1983) antibiotics such as magainins, isolated from Xenopus laevis skin (Zasloff et al., 1988) and seminal plasmin from semen (Sitaram and Nagaraj, 1989). As the name implies, these peptides disrupt artificial phospholipid bilayers, although magainin and seminal plasmin are not hemolytic. Unlike the apolipoproteins and peptide hormones (class H), each peptide of this class consists entirely of an amphipathic helix. 

Xenopus laevis is the only frog investigated in this respect. Serotonin and bufotenidin have been isolated fom its skin glands (ref.20).Recently the magainins, antimicrobial peptides with 23 amino acid residues have been isolated (ref. 21) ... 

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