title: The birth of innate immunity.
abstract: Modern immunology has seen an apparent revolution with the recognition that human immune defense is not only the responsibility of bone marrow-derived leucocytes, but also dependent on a coordinated network of many cell types including epithelial cells, fibroblasts and neural elements. This classic paper by Alexander Fleming and V.D. Allison (British J of Exp Path, 111, 1922, 252) was largely forgotten for 75 years and describes the discovery that epithelia produce a protein with direct antimicrobial activity. Thus, this paper represents the birth of the field now referred to as innate immunity and first describes an antimicrobial protein (AMP).
authors.affiliation: Division of Dermatology, University of California, San Diego, CA 92117, USA. rgallo@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Richard L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Gallo
mesh_terms: D000486:Allergy and Immunology / Q000266:history*; D023181:Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides / Q000276:immunology; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000276:immunology; D004848:Epithelium / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate / Q000502:physiology*; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D023181:Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides
keywords: antimicrobial; bacteria; lysozyme; microbiome; skin