Immunomodulatory Activities of Small Host Defense Peptides

Recent studies have demonstrated that in addition to their antimicrobial activity, cationic host defense peptides, like the human cathelicidin LL-37, perform many activities relating to innate immunity, including the induction or modulation of chemokine and cytokine production, alteration of gene expression in host cells, and inhibition of proinflammatory responses of host cells to bacterial components such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in vitro …