The only human cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide, playing key roles in innate immune defense, wound healing, and modulation of inflammatory responses.
Cancer development can be viewed as dysregulated repair. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are effector molecules of the innate immune system with direct antimicrobial activity. Beside this host defence function several AMPs play a role in the regulation…
The antimicrobial peptide LL-37 is generated from skin keratinocytes during infection of Gram-negative bacteria and exerts a microbicidal effect. LL-37 also causes functional changes in mast cells. Mast cells in the skin are involved in the innate im…
OBJECTIVES: The susceptibility of clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), to host-derived cationic antimicrobial peptides was investigated. METHODS: We examined the susceptibility of 190 clinical…
Skin functions as a first line of defense against microbial invasion. Tissue-engineered cultured skin substitutes (CSS) are used to aid wound closure in massively burned patients, and have been used to facilitate safe and effective wound closure in a…
Mast cells (MC) express cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides that act as broad-spectrum antibiotics and influence the immune defense of multiple epithelial surfaces. We hypothesized that MC help protect against skin infection through the expression of…
BACKGROUND: Local and volatile anesthetics are widely used for surgery. It is not known whether anesthetics impinge on the orchestrated events in spontaneous resolution of acute inflammation. Here we investigated whether a commonly used local anesthe…
BACKGROUND: The antimicrobial peptide PR39 is a porcine cathelicidin with angiogenic and antiapoptotic activities, as it can regulate the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and inhibitor apoptosis protein-2 (c-IAP-2) in endotheli…
BACKGROUND: Cathelicidins are a family of antimicrobial peptides acting as multifunctional effector molecules of innate immunity, which are firstly found in mammalians. Recently, several cathelicidins have also been found from chickens and fishes. No…
An essential function of the innate immune system is to directly trigger antimicrobial mechanisms to defend against invading pathogens. In humans, one such pathway involves activation by TLR2/1L leading to the vitamin D-dependent induction of antimic…
Antimicrobial peptides are good leads to develop new antibiotics, but knowledge of their mode of action is a prerequisite. Destruction of the microbial membranes through a detergent-like mechanism is one of these modes of action. This is usually stud…
Surface acoustic wave biosensors are a powerful tool for the study of biomolecular interactions. The modulation of a surface-confined acoustic wave is utilized here for the analysis of surface binding. Phase and amplitude of the wave correspond rough…
Antimicrobial peptides are intrinsic to the innate immune system in many organ systems, but little is known about their expression in the central nervous system. We examined cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum from patients with active bacterial meni…
BACKGROUND: Septic shock includes blood vessel dilatation and activation of innate immunity, which in turn causes release of antimicrobial peptides such as LL-37. It has been shown that LL-37 can attract leucocytes via the lipoxin A(4) receptor (ALX,…
Severe soft tissue infections, such as necrotizing fasciitis and severe cellulitis, caused by group A streptococci (GAS) are rapidly progressing life-threatening infections characterized by massive bacterial loads in the tissue even late after the on…
F2L, a peptide derived from heme-binding protein, was originally identified as an endogenous ligand for formyl peptide receptor-like (FPRL)2. Previously, we reported that F2L inhibits FPR and FPRL1-mediated signaling in neutrophils. Since endothelial…
Leukotriene B(4) (LTB(4)) is a lipid mediator of inflammation that was recently shown to exert antiviral activities. In this study, we demonstrate that the release of antimicrobial proteins by neutrophils contribute to an early host defense against i…
Cathelicidins represent a diverse family of endogenous cationic antibiotic peptide present in all mammalian species. In the present study, a novel cathelicidin cDNA was identified and characterized from bone marrow cells of buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)…
The recent discovery--from a meta-analysis of 18 randomized controlled trials--that supplemental cholecalciferol (vitamin D) significantly reduces all-cause mortality emphasizes the medical, ethical, and legal implications of promptly diagnosing and…
Cathelicidin production by human myeloid cells stimulated through toll-like receptor (TLR) 2/1, the migration of human CD8+ T cells to inflamed skin sites, and the ability of murine dendritic cells (DCs) to migrate from skin sites of vaccination to m…
Group A streptococci (Streptococcus pyogenes or GAS) freshly isolated from individuals with streptococcal sore throat or invasive ("flesh-eating") infection often grow as mucoid colonies on primary culture but lose this colony appearance after labora…