Patent ID: 7883711

Claim:
A method of killing and/or inhibiting growth of gram-positive bacterial cells comprising contacting the microbial cells with an antimicrobial polypeptide selected from the group consisting of: (a) a polypeptide with an amino acid sequence which has a degree of sequence identity to amino acids 1-85 of SEQ ID NO: 2 of at least 95%; (b) a polypeptide which is encoded by a nucleic acid sequence which hybridizes under medium stringency conditions with (i) nucleotides 124-378 of SEQ ID NO: 1, (ii) a subsequence of (i) of at least 100 nucleotides, or (iii) the full length complementary strand of (i) or (ii); wherein the medium stringency conditions comprise prehybridization and hybridization at 42° C. in 5×SSPE, 0.3% SDS, 200 micrograms/ml sheared and denatured salmon sperm DNA, and 35% formamide, following by washing three times each for 15 minutes using 2×SSC, 0.2% SDS at 55° C.; and (c) a fragment of the sequence of amino acids 1-85 of SEQ ID NO: 2, which has antimicrobial activity.