In Vitro and In Silico Screening and Characterization of Antimicrobial Napin Bioactive Protein in Brassica juncea and Moringa oleifera

The study aimed to investigate the antibacterial activity of Mustard (Brassica juncea) and Moringa (Moringa oleifera) leaf extracts and coagulant protein for their potential application in water treatment. Bacterial cell aggregation and growth kinetics studies were employed for thirteen bacterial strains with different concentrations of leaf extracts and coagulant protein. Moringa oleifera leaf extract (MOS) and coagulant protein showed cell aggregation against ten bacterial strains, whereas leaf extract alone showed growth inhibition of five bacterial strains for up to 6 h and five bacterial strains for up to 3 h. Brassica juncea leaf extract (BJS) showed growth inhibition for up to 6 h, and three bacterial strains showed inhibition for up to 3 h. The highest inhibition concentration with 2.5 mg/mL was 19 mm, and furthermore, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) (0.5 mg/mL) and MBC (1.5 mg/mL) were determined to have a higher antibacterial effect for <3 KDa peptides. Based on LCMS analysis, napin was identified in both MOS and BJS; furthermore, the mode of action of napin peptide was determined on lipoprotein X complex (LpxC) and four-chained structured binding protein of bacterial type II topoisomerase (4PLB). The docking analysis has exhibited moderate to potent inhibition with a range of dock score -912.9 Kcal/mol. Thus, it possesses antibacterial-coagulant potential bioactive peptides present in the Moringa oleifera purified protein (MOP) and Brassica juncea purified protein (BJP) that could act as an effective antimicrobial agent to replace currently available antibiotics. The result implies that MOP and Brassica juncea purified coagulant (BJP) proteins may perform a wide degree of antibacterial functions against different pathogens.