The toxicity of available drugs for treatment of leishmaniasis, coupled with emerging drug resistance, make it urgent to find new therapies. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have a strong broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity with distinctive modes of action and are considered as promising therapeutic agents. The defensins, members of the large family of AMPs, are immunomodulatory molecules and im...

Metabolic syndrome (MetS), characterized as obesity, insulin resistance, and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD), is associated with vitamin D insufficiency/deficiency in epidemiological studies, while the underlying mechanism is poorly addressed. On the other hand, disorder of gut microbiota, namely dysbiosis, is known to cause MetS and NAFLD. It is also known that systemic inflammation...

Defensins are cationic, cysteine-rich peptides (Mr = 3500-4000) found in the cytoplasmic granules of neutrophils and macrophages. These peptides possess broad antimicrobial activity in vitro against bacteria, fungi, tumor cells, and enveloped viruses, and they are believed to contribute to the "oxygen-independent" antimicrobial defenses of neutrophils and macrophages. Pathophysiologic studies i...

Peptide antibiotics possess the potent antimicrobial activities against invading microorganisms and contribute to the innate host defense. Human antimicrobial peptides, α-defensins (human neutrophil peptides, HNPs), human β-defensins (hBDs), and cathelicidin (LL-37) not only exhibit potent bactericidal activities against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, but also function as immunomodul...

Abstract Genetic polymorphisms of the human genome provide information about disease susceptibility and autoimmunity. variations involving innate immune system have potential to improve effectiveness diagnosis treatment urinary tract infections in children adults. DNA copy number (CNVs) DEFA1A3, which encodes for antimicrobial peptides α-defensin 1–3, been associated with recurrent UTI risk ves...

Staphylococcus aureus achieves resistance to defensins and similar cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAMPs) by modifying anionic membrane lipids via MprF with L-lysine, which leads to repulsion of these host defense molecules. S. aureus DeltamprF, which lacks the modification, was very efficiently killed by neutrophil defensins and CAMP-producing leukocytes, even when oxygen-dependent killing wa...

Human defensins play important roles in a broad range of biological functions, such as microbial defense and immunity. Yet, little is known about their molecular properties, i.e. secondary structure stability, structural variability, important side chain interactions, surface charge distribution, and resistance to thermal fluctuations, and how these properties are related to their functions. To...