title: RK-2: a novel rabbit kidney defensin and its implications for renal host defense.
abstract: Defensins are endogenous antimicrobial peptides. We demonstrated recently the existence of RK-1, a defensin-like peptide in rabbit kidneys. Defining the renal-defensin system is an essential step toward understanding how the kidney responds to infection. Here, using a combination of high-performance liquid chromatography, matrix-assisted laser desorption time-of-flight mass spectrometry, amino acid compositional analysis, and microsequence analysis, we show that the rabbit kidney contains a novel alpha-defensin-like peptide, RK-2. This work establishes the existence of a new subfamily of alpha-defensins in the kidney.
authors.affiliation: Royal Victoria Hospital, Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: E R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Daniel
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bateman
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000032:analysis; D000818:Animals; D000890:Anti-Infective Agents / Q000378:metabolism*; D001798:Blood Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D023082:Defensins; D007109:Immunity / Q000502:physiology*; D007668:Kidney / Q000378:metabolism*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011817:Rabbits; D019032:Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D000890:Anti-Infective Agents; D001798:Blood Proteins; D023082:Defensins