The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7176 p767-773
1 December 2001

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Antimicrobial peptide provides defence

Researchers from the University of California, San Diego, have demonstrated, in vivo, that endogenous expression of a mammalian antimicrobial peptide, cathelicidin, provides defence against Group A Streptococcus infection.

The researchers say that cathelicidin, which acts as a "natural antibiotic" and is expressed on epithelial surfaces and in neutrophils, is itself necessary for bacterial clearance and innate skin immunity (Nature 2001;414:456).

In another study, to be published in Nature Immunology this month, Dr Birgit Schittek, Eberhard-Karls-University, Tubingen, Germany, and colleagues report isolating a gene, Dermcidin, which encodes an antimicrobial protein secreted in sweat. The protein has a broad spectrum of activity and may play a role in the regulation of human skin flora, they say.

A new family of peptide antibiotics, piscidins, has been discovered in mast cells of fish by researchers from the College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University. The researchers say that peptide antibiotics may be present in mast cells of other vertebrate and "these cells may be critical in fighting many infectious diseases." (Nature 2001;414:268).

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