Abstract
Antimicrobial peptides are increasingly recognized as a critical first line of defence against many pathogens and have been isolated from epithelial tissues and blood cells of many vertebrates, as well as from prokaryotes, plants and invertebrates1,2. Here we show that 'piscidins', a previously undiscovered family of peptide antibiotics isolated from fish, reside in mast cells, an immune cell of uncertain function that is present in all vertebrate classes3,4. Until now, no peptide antibiotic has been isolated from the mast cells of any animal, and our discovery indicates that these cells may be critical in fighting many infectious diseases.
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Silphaduang, U., Noga, E. Peptide antibiotics in mast cells of fish. Nature 414, 268–269 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35104690
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35104690
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