The only human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide, playing key roles in innate immune defense, wound healing, and modulation of inflammatory responses.
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…
The ability of the ocular surface to respond to pathogens is in part attributed to toll-like receptors (TLRs) that recognize conserved motifs on various microbes. This study examines TLR expression on various ocular surface cells, if TLR agonists can…
Tick saliva has potent immunomodulatory properties. In arthropod-borne diseases, this effect is largely used by microorganisms to increase their pathogenicity and to evade host immune responses. We show that in Lyme borreliosis, tick salivary gland e…
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…
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…
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the core functional region of antimicrobial peptide LL-37, which inhibites RSV replication and could be developed for theraputic aplication. METHODS: A panel of 6 partial LL-37 peptides (referred to as P1 to P6) was synthesi…
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Vitamin D regulates the production of the antimicrobial peptides cathelicidin and beta-defensin-2, which play an important role in the innate immune response to infection. We hypothesized that vitamin D deficiency would be a…
BACKGROUND: Chronic, infected wounds typically contain multiple genera of bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, many of which are strong biofilm formers. Bacterial biofilms are thought to be a direct impediment to wound healing. New therapies th…
Vitamin D receptor (VDR)-dependent mechanisms regulate human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide (CAMP)/LL-37 in various cell types, but CAMP expression also increases after external perturbations (such as infection, injuries, UV irradiation, and perm…
Chemerin, a ligand for the G-protein coupled receptor chemokine-like receptor 1, requires C-terminal proteolytic processing to unleash its chemoattractant activity. Proteolytically processed chemerin selectively attracts specific subsets of immunoreg…
Our understanding of vitamin D metabolism and biological effects has grown exponentially in recent years and it has become clear that vitamin D has extensive immunomodulatory effects. The active vitamin D generating enzyme, 1α-hydroxylase, is express…
The broad spectrum of antibacterial activities of host defense cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) arises from their ability to perturb membrane integrity of the microbes. The mechanisms are often thought to require assembly of AMPs on the membran…
Human cathelicidin LL37 and its fragments LL13-37 and LL17-32 exhibited similar potencies in inhibiting growth of the yeast Candida albicans. After treatment with 0.5 μM and 5 μM LL13-37, the hyphae changed from a uniformly thick to an increasingly 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…
The antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin LL-37 possesses antituberculous activity, its association with other mycobacterial diseases, such as leprosy, is unknown. We studied serum cathelicidin and 25OH-vitamin D3 levels in 29 leprosy patients and 19 he…
Sepsis is a systemic disease resulting from harmful host response to bacterial infections. During the exacerbation of severe sepsis or septic shock, apoptosis of endothelial cells is induced in susceptible organs such as the lung and liver and trigge…
Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine that regulates hematopoiesis, inflammation, immune responses and bone homeostasis in mammals. Fish IL-6 has been cloned in recent years but to date no functional studies have been reported. Thus, in this…
Cathelicidins are among the best characterized antimicrobial peptides and have been shown to have an important role in mammalian innate immunity. We recently isolated a novel mature cathelicidin peptide (codCath) from Atlantic cod and in the present…
The human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide LL-37 regulates apoptosis of several cell types. Defective apoptosis of skin fibroblasts may contribute to systemic sclerosis (SSc). Here, we show that LL-37 inhibited apoptosis of SSc fibroblasts and iden…
AIMS: Ceragenin CSA-13 is a synthetic mimic of cationic antibacterial peptides, with facial amphiphilic morphology reproduced using a cholic acid scaffold. Previous data have shown that this molecule displays broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, wh…