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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1989 Jan;86(1):262–266. doi: 10.1073/pnas.86.1.262

Insect immunity: isolation from immune blood of the dipteran Phormia terranovae of two insect antibacterial peptides with sequence homology to rabbit lung macrophage bactericidal peptides.

J Lambert 1, E Keppi 1, J L Dimarcq 1, C Wicker 1, J M Reichhart 1, B Dunbar 1, P Lepage 1, A Van Dorsselaer 1, J Hoffmann 1, J Fothergill 1, et al.
PMCID: PMC286444  PMID: 2911573

Abstract

We have isolated from the hemolymph of immunized larvae of the dipteran insect Phormia terranovae two peptides that are selectively active against Gram-positive bacteria. They are positively charged peptides of 40 residues containing three intramolecular disulfide bridges and differ from one another by only a single amino acid. These peptides are neither functionally nor structurally related to any known insect immune response peptides but show significant homology to microbicidal cationic peptides from mammalian granulocytes (defensins). We propose the name "insect defensins" for these insect antibiotic peptides.

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Selected References

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