14102 studies
Appropriate modulation of immunity is beneficial in antimicrobial therapy and vaccine development. Host defense peptides (HDPs) constitute critically important components of innate immunity with both antimicrobial and immune regulatory activities. We…
Ureaplasma species commonly colonize the adult urogenital tract and are implicated in invasive diseases of adults and neonates. Factors that permit the organisms to cause chronic colonization or infection are poorly understood. We sought to investiga…
Antifungal mechanisms of action of two cathelicidins, chicken CATH-2 and human LL-37, were studied and compared with the mode of action of the salivary peptide histatin 5 (Hst5). Candida albicans was used as a model organism for fungal pathogens. Ana…
Apart from transporting lipids through the body, the human plasma lipoproteins very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) are also thought to serve as a modality for intra-organismal protein transfer, shipping proteins with…
A role for vitamin A in host defense against Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been suggested through epidemiological and in vitro studies; however, the mechanism is unclear. In this study, we demonstrate that vitamin A-triggered antimicrobial activity…
Cathelicidin is a host defense peptide with multiple innate immunity-related functions. Recent findings indicate that cathelicidin is frequently dysregulated in human cancers where it plays a paradoxical yet dominant role in the regulation of tumor m…
BACKGROUND: Cathelicidins comprise a major group of host-defence peptides. Conserved across a wide range of species, they have several functions related to host defence. Only one cathelicidin has been found in humans but several cathelicidin genes oc…
BACKGROUND: We have previously shown that, in response to microbial infection, activated Müller glia secrete inflammatory cytokines/chemokines and exhibit antimicrobial properties. The aim of this study is to understand the mechanisms and the key com…
STUDY QUESTION: Does antimicrobial peptide, LL-37, inhibit sperm fertilizing ability? SUMMARY ANSWER: Our results indicate that LL-37 inhibits mouse and human sperm fertilizing ability. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: LL-37, a cationic antimicrobial peptide,…
LL-37/hCAP-18 is the only human member of the cathelicidin family and plays an important role in killing various pathogens, as well as in immune modulation. In this study, we investigated the effect of LL-37 on bacterial phagocytosis by macrophages a…
A promising strategy in the fight against multidrug-resistant pathogens is the induction of endogenous AMPs, with compounds such as VitD₃ and PBA. These compounds display an array of immunomodulatory effects that remain to be investigated in further…
Rosacea is a chronic inflammatory condition of facial skin estimated to affect more than 16 million Americans. Although the pathogenesis of rosacea is not fully understood, recent evidence in vitro as well as in vivo has supported the role of increas…
Production of the human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide gene (hCAP18/LL-37), is regulated by 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D3) and is critical in the killing of pathogens by innate immune cells. In addition, secreted LL-37 binds extracellular rec…
Acinetobacter baumannii can acquire resistance to the cationic peptide antibiotic colistin through complete loss of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) expression. The activities of the host cationic antimicrobials LL-37 and human lysozyme against multidrug-res…
The heterogeneity of mononuclear phagocytes, partially explained by cell differentiation, influences the activation of innate responses. It has been reported that Mycobacterium tuberculosis inhibits monocyte differentiation into either dendritic cell…
Cathelicidins are a family of antimicrobial peptides found in neutrophils and the epithelium that have broad-spectrum activity against bacteria. This study aimed to investigative the mRNA expression of cathelicidins and protein localization of cathel…
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are part of the innate immune system of complex multicellular organisms. Despite the fact that AMPs show great potential as a novel class of antibiotics, the lack of a cost-effective means for their mass production limit…
Before the antibiotic era, treatment of tuberculosis patients was restricted to sun exposure in sanatoria. Years later, it was found that 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 stimulates production of cathelicidins, a family of polypeptides found in lysosomes of…
Major long-term complications in patients with diabetes are related to oxidative stress, caused by the hyperglycaemia characteristic for diabetes mellitus. The anti-oxidant coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) has therefore been proposed as a beneficial supplement t…
BACKGROUND: Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide LL-37 has the capacity to kill a wide range of microbes and to modify host immunity. Recently, our group observed that the activation of keratinocytes by LL-37 and DNA greatly increases interferon (IFN)-…