title: Antimicrobial potentials and structural disorder of human and animal defensins.
abstract: Defensins are moonlighting peptides which are broadly distributed throughout all the living kingdoms. They play a multitude of important roles in human health and disease, possessing several immunoregulatory functions and manifesting broad antimicrobial activities against viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Based on their patterns of intramolecular disulfide bridges, these small cysteine-rich cationic proteins are divided into three major types, α-, β-, and θ-defensins, with the α- and β-defensins being further subdivided into a number of subtypes. The various roles played by the defensins in the innate (especially mucosal) and adoptive immunities place these polypeptides at the frontiers of the defense against the microbial invasions. Current work analyzes the antimicrobial activities of human and animal defensins in light of their intrinsic disorder propensities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Ehab H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Mattar
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Hussein A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Almehdar
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Cell Biology Department, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Division, National Research Centre, Dokki, Gizza, P.O. Box 12622, Egypt.
authors.forename: Haitham A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Yacoub
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Department of Molecular Medicine and USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Research Institute, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA; Laboratory of Structural Dynamics, Stability and Folding of Proteins, Institute of Cytology, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, Russia. Electronic address: vuversky@health.usf.edu.
authors.forename: Vladimir N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Uversky
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Therapeutic and Protective Proteins Laboratory, Protein Research Department, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Research Institute, City for Scientific Research and Technology Applications, New Borg EL-Arab 21934, Alexandria, Egypt. Electronic address: redwan1961@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Elrashdy M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Redwan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D023082:Defensins / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000502:physiology*; D060467:Disease Resistance / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D000072416:Protein Structural Elements
chemical_list: D023082:Defensins
keywords: Anti-tumor activity; Antimicrobial peptides; Defensins; Intrinsic disorder; Protein structure; protein function