Rl. Gallo et Km. Huttner, ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDES - AN EMERGING CONCEPT IN CUTANEOUS BIOLOGY, Journal of investigative dermatology, 111(5), 1998, pp. 739-743
Antimicrobial peptides are part of the host defense systems of plants,
insects, fish, amphibia, birds, and mammals. These small proteins wer
e previously thought of as an evolutionarily ancient system of immune
protection with Little relevance to the normal function of human skin.
Recent developments have found that mammalian skin expresses these ge
ne-encoded peptide antibiotics during inflammatory events such as woun
d repair, contact dermatitis, and psoriasis, The presence of these pep
tides in the skin forms a barrier for innate host protection against m
icrobial pathogenesis. Furthermore, antimicrobial peptides also act on
animal cells by stimulating them to change behaviors such as syndecan
expression, chemotaxis, and chloride secretion. The combination of ef
fects on host cells with antimicrobial action in a single molecule rep
resents an efficient defense and response system against injury. Under
standing the action of antimicrobial peptides in skin may yield furthe
r insight into the mechanism of innate cutaneous disease control and p
rovide new approaches to therapy of wounds and inflammatory dermatitis
.