The only human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide, playing key roles in innate immune defense, wound healing, and modulation of inflammatory responses.
BACKGROUND: Interest in airways inflammatory disease has increasingly focused on innate immunity. We investigated several components of innate immunity in induced sputum of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), COPD, and asthma, and healthy control sub…
Beside its physical barrier against invading microorganisms, the skin has the ability to produce a number of antimicrobial peptides and proteins, including human beta-defensins, cathelicidin LL-37 and lysozyme that participate in the innate host defe…
Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides are effectors of innate immune defense in mammals. Humans and mice have only one cathelicidin gene, whereas domesticated mammals such as the pig, cow, and horse have multiple cathelicidin genes. We hypothesized tha…
The cathelicidin family of host defense peptides includes a group of cationic and usually amphipathic peptides that display a variety of activities related to host defense functions, among which the most acknowledged is a direct antimicrobial activit…
PURPOSE: Human beta-defensin-2 (hBD-2) and cathelicidin LL-37 are salt-sensitive cationic antimicrobial peptides expressed by ocular surface epithelia. The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of preservative-free artificial tears on hBD-…
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are expressed in the respiratory tract and act as effector substances of the innate immune system. A variety of cells synthesize and secrete AMPs including epithelial and professional host defense cells such as neutrophi…
Mammalian antimicrobial proteins, such as defensins and cathelicidin, have stimulating effects on host leukocytes. Cathelin-related antimicrobial peptide (CRAMP), the orthologue of human cathelicidin/LL-37, is the sole identified murine cathelicidin.…
The oral cavity is a unique environment in which antimicrobial peptides play a key role in maintaining health and may have future therapeutic applications. Present evidence suggests that alpha-defensins, beta-defensins, LL-37, histatin, and other ant…
Natural killer (NK) cells, innate lymphocyte effectors, kill virus-infected host and tumor cells in non-MHC, non-TCR restricted fashion, unlike T cells. The role of NK cells in recognition and killing of pathogens remains unknown. Expression of the t…
Host defense peptides (often called cationic antimicrobial peptides) have pleiotropic immunomodulatory functions. The human host defense peptide LL-37 is up-regulated at sites of infection and has little or no antimicrobial activity in tissue-culture…
The in vitro activity of six cathelicidin peptides against 25 strains of Chlamydia was investigated. SMAP-29 proved to be the most active peptide, reducing the inclusion numbers of all 10 strains of Chlamydia trachomatis tested by > or =50% at 10 mic…
Neisseria gonorrhoeae is a human pathogen causing the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoeae. The bacteria preferentially attach to and invade epithelial cells of the genital tract. As these cells previously have been shown to express the human cat…
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Antimicrobial proteins are key effector molecules of innate immunity. The review discusses recent progress in understanding the function of these host defence molecules in intestinal physiology. RECENT FINDINGS: All antimicrobial p…
Antimicrobial peptides are endogenous antibiotics that directly inactivate microorganisms and in addition have a variety of receptor-mediated functions. LL-37/hCAP-18 is the only cathelicidin found in humans and is involved in angiogenesis and regula…
BACKGROUND: The antibacterial activity of host defense peptides (HDP) is largely mediated by permeabilization of bacterial membranes. The lipid membrane of enveloped viruses might also be a target of antimicrobial peptides. Therefore, we screened a p…
BACKGROUND: LL-37, an antimicrobial peptide, has been discovered to be produced by a number of epithelial cells. It is identified as a key element in the innate host defense mechanism. Because little is known about the expression of LL-37 in human si…
Humans are one of the few species that resist infection by Trypanosoma brucei brucei because the parasites are killed by lytic factors found in human serum. Trypanosome lytic factors (TLFs) are protein/lipid complexes that contain apolipoprotein A-I…
To investigate whether LL-37 and human beta defensin-2 (hBD-2) is related to the patients with psoriasis seldom having skin infections and explore the role of the two peptides and CCR6 (the receptor of hBD-2) in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, the exp…
The production of antimicrobial peptides and proteins is essential for defense against infection. Many of the known human antimicrobial peptides are multifunctional, with stimulatory activities such as chemotaxis while simultaneously acting as natura…
OBJECTIVE: The action of antibacterial cathelicidin CAP11 (cationic antibacterial polypeptide of 11 kDa) on the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced suppression of neutrophil apoptosis was evaluated in vitro. METHODS: Human neutrophils (10(6) cells/ml) w…