The only human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide, playing key roles in innate immune defense, wound healing, and modulation of inflammatory responses.
BACKGROUND: Cathelicidins are a major group of natural antimicrobial peptides which play essential roles in regulating host defense and immunity. In addition to the antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities, recent studies have reported the invol…
BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial peptides are effectors of host defence against infection and inflammation and can encourage wound repair. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to investigate the plasma antimicrobial peptide LL-37 and nuclear factor…
Legionella pneumophila is a waterborne intracellular pathogenic bacterium, the most frequent cause of human legionellosis and a relatively common cause of community-acquired and nosocomial pneumonia. Some legionellosis outbreaks are related to the pr…
BACKGROUND: Glucocorticoids have been widely used to treat patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Nevertheless, corticosteroid insensitivity is a major barrier to the effective treatment of COPD and its mechanism remains unclear.…
Screening for systolic heart failure (SHF) has been problematic. Heart failure management guidelines suggest screening for structural heart disease and SHF prevention strategies should be a top priority. We developed a multi-protein biomarker panel u…
Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV), a new world alphavirus belonging to the Togaviridae family, causes periodic disease outbreaks in humans and equines with high associated mortality and morbidity. VEEV is highly infectious via the aerosol r…
The most significant community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) in Korea is sequence type (ST) 72 with staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) type IV (ST72-MRSA-IV). Although the impact of CA-MRSA on the clini…
Existing understanding of molecular composition of sputum and its role in tuberculosis patients is variously limited to its diagnostic potential. We sought to identify infection induced sputum proteome alteration in active/non tuberculosis patients (…
Temporins are anti-microbial peptides synthesized in the skin of frogs of thefamily. The few studies to date that have examined their anti-viral properties have shown that they have potential as anti-viral therapies. In this work, we evaluated the an…
BACKGROUND: Rosacea is a chronic inflammatory skin condition whose etiology has been linked to mast cells and the antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin LL-37. Individuals with refractory disease have demonstrated clinical benefit with periodic injection…
The development of some cancers is associated with vitamin D deficiency. We suggest that reduced conversion of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)D) and the resulting modification of tissue specific immune responses may…
Proline-arginine-rich (PR)-39 is neutrophil antimicrobial peptide that has potent antimicrobial activity against a broad spectrum of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, and some enveloped viruses as a part of the innate immune system. We analy…
Dental plaque is closely related to the occurrence of dental caries, of which the main causative bacterium is Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans). In this study, to create potent antibiofilm agents, we chose a human antimicrobial peptide LL-37 as our st…
OBJECTIVE: The autoimmune etiology in psoriasis remains to be clarified. We therefore undertook this study to identify novel pathogenic autoantigens and autoantibodies in patients with psoriasis, with the aim of shedding light on the molecular and ce…
Clusters of Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) urethritis among primarily heterosexual males in multiple US cities have been attributed to a unique non-encapsulated meningococcal clade (the US Nm urethritis clade, US_NmUC) within the hypervirulent clonal co…
The relentless growth of multidrug resistance and generation of recalcitrant biofilm are major obstacles in treating wounds, particularly in austere military environments where broad-spectrum pathogen coverage is needed. Designed antimicrobial peptid…
Superresolution, single-particle tracking reveals effects of the cationic antimicrobial peptide LL-37 on thecytoplasm. Seconds after LL-37 penetrates the cytoplasmic membrane, the chromosomal DNA becomes rigidified on a length scale of ∼30 nm, eviden…
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is characterized by an excessive inflammatory response of the airways, is often complicated by exacerbations. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with an increased risk for COPD and may predisp…
Dermal fibroblasts (dFBs) resist infection by locally differentiating into adipocytes and producing cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide in response to Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Here, we show that neonatal skin was enriched with adipogenic dFB…
Stimuli-responsive nanocarriers based on lipid self-assemblies have the potential to provide targeted delivery of antimicrobial peptides, limiting their side effects while protecting them from degradation in the biological environments. In the presen…