The only human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide, playing key roles in innate immune defense, wound healing, and modulation of inflammatory responses.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a highly versatile opportunistic pathogen and its ability to produce biofilms is a direct impediment to the healing of wounds and recovery from infection. Interest in anti-microbial peptides (AMPs) has grown due to their pot…
Bone marrow (BM)-derived fibrocytes are a population of CD45(+) and collagen Type I-expressing cells that migrate to the spleen and to target injured organs, such as skin, lungs, kidneys, and liver. While CD45(+)Col(+) fibrocytes contribute to collag…
Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty with stent implantation is used to dilate arteries narrowed by atherosclerotic plaques and to revascularize coronary arteries occluded by atherothrombosis in myocardial infarction. Commonly applied drug-eluting s…
OBJECTIVE: To determine alterations in quantities and distributions of natural antimicrobials following ischemia-reperfusion injury. We hypothesized that these compounds would be upregulated in areas of small intestine where changes in permeability a…
BACKGROUND: Obstructive jaundice is associated with bacterial translocation and inflammatory cytokine induction. It is unknown if toll-like receptors (TLRs) and their upstream molecule high mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) are involved in the pathogeneti…
Over the last decade a significant number of studies have highlighted the central role of host antimicrobial (or defence) peptides in modulating the response of innate immune cells to pathogen-associated ligands. In humans, the most widely studied an…
The objective of this study was to investigate the expression and relationship of LL-37, plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) and interferon-alpha (IFN-α) in skin in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and their role in SLE pathogenesis. Skin biopsies…
The scaffolding adaptor protein p62/SQSTM1 (p62) has been shown to be an autophagy receptor that acts as a link between the ubiquitination and autophagy machineries. However, the roles of autophagy and p62 in human keratinocytes are not well understo…
Bacterial pathogens display a variety of protection mechanisms against the inhibitory and lethal effects of host cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAMPs). To identify Yersinia pestis genes involved in CAMP resistance, libraries of DSY101 (KIM6 caf1 pl…
BACKGROUND & AIMS: Cathelicidin (encoded by Camp) is an antimicrobial peptide in the innate immune system. We examined whether macrophages express cathelicidin in colons of mice with experimental colitis and patients with inflammatory bowel disease,…
Large geographical variations in dental health and tooth loss among US adolescents and young adults have been reported since the mid-1800s. Studies in the 1920s and 1930s noted that vitamin D and ultraviolet-B (UVB) irradiance reduced caries formatio…
Human LL-37 is a multifunctional antimicrobial peptide that promotes inflammation, angiogenesis, wound healing, and tumor metastasis. Most effects of LL-37 are mediated via the activation of the cell surface G protein-coupled receptor FPR2 on leukocy…
BACKGROUND: 1,25-Dihydroxycholecalciferol (1,25(OH)(2)D(3)) has been shown to mitigate epithelial inflammatory responses after antigen exposure. Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) are at particular risk for vitamin D deficiency. This may contribute t…
Intestinal colonization of avian species by Eimeria parasites results in the enteric disease, coccidiosis. A study was carried out to assess the immunologic effects of Eimeria praecox infection on the gut of infected chickens. In Experiment 1, birds…
Cancer cells recruit monocytes, macrophages and other inflammatory cells by producing abundant chemoattractants and growth factors, such as macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF/CSF-1) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1/CCL2), to pro…
Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides are multifunctional peptides that are important in the innate immune system of mammals. Cathelicidins have been identified in several fish species. In this study we have isolated cathelicidin from Atlantic cod (Gad…
BACKGROUND: Protozoan parasites, such as Leishmania, still pose an enormous public health problem in many countries throughout the world. Current measures are outdated and have some associated drug resistance, prompting the search into novel therapie…
The placenta is a major barrier that prevents potentially infectious agents from causing fetal diseases or related complications during pregnancy. Therefore, we postulated that the placenta might express a broad repertoire of antimicrobial proteins a…
Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are produced by all Gram-negative microorganisms studied to date. The contributions of OMVs to biological processes are diverse and include mediation of bacterial stress responses, selective packaging and secretion of v…
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to demonstrate the histological and immunohistological features of skin biopsy specimens from patients complaining of isolated itching of the external auditory canal. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective, case-control stud…