ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDES - AN EMERGING CONCEPT IN CUTANEOUS BIOLOGY

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 .