Antimicrobial peptides from marine invertebrates as a new frontier for microbial infection control.
Antimicrobial peptides are widely expressed in organisms and have been linked to innate and acquired immunities in vertebrates. These compounds are constitutively expressed and rapidly induced at different cellular levels to interact directly with infectious agents and/or modulate immunoreactions involved in defense against pathogenic microorganisms. In invertebrates, antimicrobial peptides represent the major humoral defense system against infection, showing a diverse spectrum of action mechanisms, most of them related to plasma membrane disturbance and lethal alteration of microbial integrity. Marine invertebrates are widespread, extremely diverse, and constantly under an enormous microbial challenge from the ocean environment, itself altered by anthropic influences derived from industrialization and transportation. Consequently, this study reexamines the peptides isolated over the past 2 decades from different origins, bringing phyla not previously reviewed up to date. Moreover, a promising novel use of antimicrobial peptides as effective drugs in human and veterinary medicine could be based on their unusual properties and synergic counterparts as immune response humoral effectors, in addition to their direct microbicidal activity. This has been seen in many other marine proteins that are sufficiently immunogenic to humans, not necessarily in terms of antibody generation but as inflammation promoters and recruitment agents or immune enhancers.
Otero-González
Anselmo Jesus
AJ
Centro de Estudios de Proteínas, Universidad de La Habana, Havana, Cuba.
Magalhães
Beatriz Simas
BS
Garcia-Villarino
Monica
M
López-Abarrategui
Carlos
C
Sousa
Daniel Amaro
DA
Dias
Simoni Campos
SC
Franco
Octávio Luiz
OL
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000890:Anti-Infective Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000494:pharmacology; D023181:Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000494:pharmacology; D006801:Humans; D007239:Infections / Q000188:drug therapy; D007448:Invertebrates / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism*; D008386:Marine Biology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data
D000890:Anti-Infective Agents; D023181:Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides