The only human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide, playing key roles in innate immune defense, wound healing, and modulation of inflammatory responses.
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…
BACKGROUND: Narrowband ultraviolet B (NB-UVB) has been widely used in the treatment of psoriasis. It has been shown that vitamin D is a major regulator of the expression of human antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin LL-37, which has a critical role in…
PURPOSE: Recent findings of increased cathelicidin protein and its proteolytic fragments in rosacea suggest a pathogenic role for cathelicidin in this disease. The relationship between cathelicidin and protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR-2) is therefo…
AIM: To measure the levels of hCAP18/LL-37 in gingival crevicular fluid from patients with periodontal diseases compared with healthy controls and to determine the correlation between hCAP18/LL-37 and chondroitin sulphate (CS) levels in patients with…
Antimicrobial peptides (AMP) are ubiquitous innate immune elements in epithelial tissues. We recently discovered that a signaling lipid, the ceramide metabolite sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), regulates production of a major AMP, cathelicidin antimicr…
Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, relies on multiple virulence factors to subvert the host immune defense. Using Caenorhabditis elegans as an infection model, we screened approximately 5,000 transposon mutants of B. anthracis Sterne…
Incorporation of locally produced signaling molecules into cell-derived vesicles may serve as an endogenous mediator delivery system. We recently reported that levels alpha-2-macroglobulin (A2MG)-containing microparticles are elevated in plasma from…
Apart from their role in the immune defence against pathogens evidence of a role of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in autoimmune diseases has accumulated in the past years. The aim of this project was to examine the functional impact of the human cath…
In the upper airway, the production of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) protects against bacteria, viruses and fungi. Previous investigations have revealed downregulated expression of AMPs in different manifestations of allergic disease. In this study,…
Antimicrobial peptides are an important component of the innate immune defence. Mycobacterium avium subsp. hominissuis (M. avium) is an organism that establishes contact with the respiratory and gastrointestinal mucosa as a necessary step for infecti…
Tuberculosis (TB) is an ongoing threat to global health, and the lack of effective therapies for treating it is also a global problem. Previous studies have shown that human cathelicidin and defensins have effective antimicrobial activity against Myc…
Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a widespread cutaneous pathogen responsible for the great majority of bacterial skin infections in humans. The incidence of skin infections by S. aureus reflects in part the competition between host cutaneous immu…
Burn wound infections are often difficult to treat due to the presence of multidrug-resistant bacterial strains and biofilms. Currently, mupirocin is used to eradicate methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from colonized persons; however…
Rosacea is a chronic inflammatory skin disease whose pathophysiological mechanism is still unclear. However, it is known that mast cell (MC) numbers are increased in the dermis of rosacea patients. MC proteases not only recruit other immune cells, wh…
BACKGROUND: Rosacea is a chronic skin disorder that presents with abnormal vascular and inflammatory conditions. Clinical manifestations include flushing, facial erythema, inflammatory papules and pustules, telangiectasias, edema, and watery or irrit…
UNLABELLED: At birth, the foetus makes the transition from the uterus to a world full of microbes. The newborn baby needs protection against potential invading pathogens and needs to establish a normal microbiota. CONCLUSION: Antimicrobial peptides a…
Bordetella pertussis, the causative agent of whooping cough, has many strategies for evading the human immune system. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is an important Gram-negative bacterial surface structure that activates the immune system via Toll-like re…
Small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) technology has been widely used in Escherichia coli expression systems to produce antimicrobial peptides. However, E. coli is a pathogenic bacterium that produces endotoxins and can secrete proteins into the pe…
Cathelicidin-BF-30 (BF-30), a water-soluble peptide isolated from the snake venom of Bungarus fasciatus containing 30 amino acid residues, was incorporated in poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) 75∶25 microspheres (MS) prepared by a water in oil in…
Various investigators have attempted to overcome the shortage of available hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) by facilitating their engraftment after transplantation. Preconditioning of HSPCs with the granulocyte-derived cationic peptide LL-…