Institute of Mitochondrial Biology and Medicine, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of the Ministry of Education, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
Institute of Human Virology and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
Front Immunol. 2020 May 7;11:764. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.00764. eCollection 2020.
Defensins are a major family of host defense peptides expressed predominantly in neutrophils and epithelial cells. Their broad antimicrobial activities and multifaceted immunomodulatory functions have been extensively studied, cementing their role in innate immunity as a core host-protective component against bacterial, viral and fungal infections. More recent studies, however, paint defensins in a bad light such that they are "alleged" to promote viral and bacterial infections in certain biological settings. This mini review summarizes the latest findings on the potential pathogenic properties of defensins against the backdrop of their protective roles in antiviral and antibacterial immunity. Further, a succinct description of both tumor-proliferative and -suppressive activities of defensins is also given to highlight their functional and mechanistic complexity in antitumor immunity. We posit that given an enabling environment defensins, widely heralded as the "Swiss army knife," can function as a "double-edged sword" in host immunity.
防御素是宿主防御肽的主要家族，主要表达于中性粒细胞和上皮细胞。它们广泛的抗菌活性和多方面的免疫调节功能已被广泛研究，巩固了它们在先天免疫中的核心宿主保护成分的作用，以抵抗细菌、病毒和真菌感染。然而，最近的研究对防御素有了负面的看法，认为它们在某些生物环境下“据称”会促进病毒和细菌感染。这篇小型综述总结了防御素在抗病毒和抗菌免疫中的保护作用背景下，其潜在的致病性特性的最新发现。此外，还简要描述了防御素的促肿瘤增殖和抑制肿瘤活性，以突出其在抗肿瘤免疫中的功能和机制复杂性。我们假设，在有利的环境下，防御素被广泛誉为“瑞士军刀”，可以在宿主免疫中充当“双刃剑”。
