title: Defensins: natural component of human innate immunity.
abstract: The widespread use of antibiotics has contributed to a huge increase in the number of resistant bacteria. New classes of drugs are therefore being developed of which defensins are a potential source. Defensins are a group of antimicrobial peptides found in different living organisms, involved in the first line of defense in their innate immune response against pathogens. This review summarizes the results of studies of this family of human antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). There is a special emphasis on describing the entire group and individual peptides, history of their discovery, their functions and expression sites. The results of the recent studies on the use of the biologically active peptides in human medicine are also presented. The pharmaceutical potential of human defensins cannot be ignored, especially considering their strong antimicrobial activity and properties such as low molecular weight, reduced immunogenicity, broad activity spectrum and resistance to proteolysis, but there are still many challenges and questions regarding the possibilities of their practical application.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding, Polish Academy of Sciences in Jastrzębiec, Poland.
authors.forename: Justyna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jarczak
authors.forename: Ewa M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Kościuczuk
authors.forename: Paweł
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lisowski
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Strzałkowska
authors.forename: Artur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jóźwik
authors.forename: Jarosław
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Horbańczuk
authors.forename: Józef
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Krzyżewski
authors.forename: Lech
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zwierzchowski
authors.forename: Emilia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bagnicka
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000890:Anti-Infective Agents / Q000276:immunology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D023082:Defensins / Q000276:immunology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D055808:Drug Discovery; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D007239:Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents; D023082:Defensins
keywords: AMP; BAC; BLAST; BOS; CMV; Cys; DEFA; DEFB; ECHO; ELISA; HIV; HMM; HSV; PMN; RTD; a.a; alpha defensin; amino acids; antimicrobial peptides; bacterial artificial chromosome; basic local alignment search tool; beta defensin; broncholitis obliteraus syndrome; cysteine; cytomegalovirus; enteric cytopathogenic human orphan virus; enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; herpes simplex virus; hidden markov model; human immunodeficiency virus; polymorphonuclear neutrophiles; rhesus theta defensin