tailieunhanh - Báo cáo khoa hoc : Antimicrobial peptides important in innate immunity

Antimicrobial peptides are present in all walks of life, from plants to ani-mals, and they are considered to be endogenous antibiotics. In general, antimicrobial peptides are determinants of the composition of the microbi-ota and they function to fend off microbes and prevent infections. | IFEBS Journal REVIEW ARTICLE Antimicrobial peptides important in innate immunity Andreas Cederlund1 Gudmundur H. Gudmundsson2 and Birgitta Agerberth1 1 Department of MedicalBiochemistry and Biophysics Karolinska Institutet Stockholm Sweden 2 Institute of Biology University of Iceland Reykjavik Iceland Keywords antimicrobial peptides cathelicidins defensins innate immunity LL-37 phylogenetic tree Correspondence B. Agerberth Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics MBB Karolinska Institutet SE 171 77 Stockholm Sweden Fax 46 8 337 462 Tel 46 8 524 87781 E-mail Antimicrobial peptides are present in all walks of life from plants to animals and they are considered to be endogenous antibiotics. In general antimicrobial peptides are determinants of the composition of the microbiota and they function to fend off microbes and prevent infections. Antimicrobial peptides eliminate micro-organisms through disruption of their cell membranes. Their importance in human immunity and in health as well as disease has only recently been appreciated. The present review provides an introduction to the field of antimicrobial peptides in general and discusses two of the major classes of mammalian antimicrobial peptides the defen-sins and the cathelicidins. The review focuses on their structures their main modes of action and their regulation. Received 17 May 2011 revised 13 July 2011 accepted 10 August 2011 doi Introduction The first indications of the presence of antimicrobial peptides AMPs were in bacteria and fungi 1 where they were regarded as unique defense molecules in unicellular organisms. Some of these peptides were shown to be synthesized independently of ribosomal translation instead being derived from enzymatic synthesis often forming cyclic peptides and also containing unusual amino acids. However in 1962 the field broadened to metazoans with the isolation and characterization of the hemolytic bombinin peptide