title: Sequence diversity and evolution of antimicrobial peptides in invertebrates.
abstract: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are evolutionarily ancient molecules that act as the key components in the invertebrate innate immunity against invading pathogens. Several AMPs have been identified and characterized in invertebrates, and found to display considerable diversity in their amino acid sequence, structure and biological activity. AMP genes appear to have rapidly evolved, which might have arisen from the co-evolutionary arms race between host and pathogens, and enabled organisms to survive in different microbial environments. Here, the sequence diversity of invertebrate AMPs (defensins, cecropins, crustins and anti-lipopolysaccharide factors) are presented to provide a better understanding of the evolution pattern of these peptides that play a major role in host defense mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Center of Excellence for Molecular Biology and Genomics of Shrimp, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand. Electronic address: anchalee.k@chula.ac.th.
authors.forename: Anchalee
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tassanakajon
authors.affiliation: Center of Excellence for Molecular Biology and Genomics of Shrimp, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand.
authors.forename: Kunlaya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Somboonwiwat
authors.affiliation: Center of Excellence for Molecular Biology and Genomics of Shrimp, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand; National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), 113 Paholyothin Road, Klong 1, Klong Luang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand.
authors.forename: Piti
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Amparyup
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D023181:Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D060829:Arthropod Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D007448:Invertebrates / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D023181:Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides; D060829:Arthropod Proteins
keywords: Antilipopolysaccharide factors; Antimicrobial peptides; Cecropins; Crustins; Defensins; Sequence diversity