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Peptide Antibiotics and their Role in Innate Immunity

Peptide Antibiotics and their Role in Innate Immunity Animal peptide antibiotics are defined as antimicrobial peptides made by an animal (including humans), usually with a specificity that is important for the innate immunity (nonadaptive immunity) of that animal. These compounds 61 BOMAN act on a rather broad spectrum of microbial organisms that often belong to the common or natural flora associated with the animal. The most striking properties of the classical immune system are its high specificity and memory. For immunologists there have been two outstanding intellectual challenges, namely to understand the basis for specificity and memory. The intrinsic value attributed to the solving of these two problems has been very high, in fact sometimes so high that other parts of the immune system have not been called "immunology." The demand for a high specificity has by necessity been linked to the avoiding of self-destruction and the need to prevent reinfection has been the obvious survival value of a memory system. The main advantage of the animal peptide antibiotics as factors of innate immunity is that they can function without either high specificity or mem­ ory: They avoid the problem of self-destruction either by a cellular compart­ mentalization or by specificity for a microbial target that http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annual Review of Immunology Annual Reviews

Peptide Antibiotics and their Role in Innate Immunity

Boman, Hans G.
Annual Review of Immunology , Volume 13 (1) – Apr 1, 1995
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Publisher
Annual Reviews
Copyright
Copyright 1995 Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
Subject
Review Articles
ISSN
0732-0582
eISSN
1545-3278
DOI
10.1146/annurev.iy.13.040195.000425
pmid
7612236
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Animal peptide antibiotics are defined as antimicrobial peptides made by an animal (including humans), usually with a specificity that is important for the innate immunity (nonadaptive immunity) of that animal. These compounds 61 BOMAN act on a rather broad spectrum of microbial organisms that often belong to the common or natural flora associated with the animal. The most striking properties of the classical immune system are its high specificity and memory. For immunologists there have been two outstanding intellectual challenges, namely to understand the basis for specificity and memory. The intrinsic value attributed to the solving of these two problems has been very high, in fact sometimes so high that other parts of the immune system have not been called "immunology." The demand for a high specificity has by necessity been linked to the avoiding of self-destruction and the need to prevent reinfection has been the obvious survival value of a memory system. The main advantage of the animal peptide antibiotics as factors of innate immunity is that they can function without either high specificity or mem­ ory: They avoid the problem of self-destruction either by a cellular compart­ mentalization or by specificity for a microbial target that

Journal

Annual Review of Immunology – Annual Reviews

Published: Apr 1, 1995

Keywords: antibacterial peptides; processing of prepropeptides; genes for preproantibiotics; gene control; chemical synthesis of peptide antibiotics

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