The New About Congenital Antimicrobial Defense of Some Epithelial Tissues – Vaginal Mucosa and Hair

Abstract

Antimicrobial peptides (AMP) are a family of more than 500 different substances which protect mucosal and dry epithelial surfaces of all multicellular organisms (Bals, 2000; Zasloff, 2002). They are widely dispersed in nature and active against broad spectrum of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, yeasts, fungi and enveloped viruses, therefore they called “natural antibiotics”. Most of AMP are the cationic peptides very diversed with structure but demonstrate an affinity for the negatively charged phospholipids which are present on the outer surfaces of the cytoplasmic membranes of many microbial species. As far as it is difficult for a microbe to change the phospholipid organization of its membrane, resistance to the AMP occurs at levels that are much lower than those observed for conventional antibiotics. Besides the direct antimicrobial function AMP are the inflammation mediators participated in such different processes as proliferation, immune induction, wound healing, cytokines release, chemotaxis, protease-antiprotease balance, redox homeostasis. Different human epithelial locuses are investigated for availability of AMP – respiratory tract, oral cavity, skin, colon, vaginal tract. However some “blank spots” occur until now, for example, to what extent the role of AMP in the defense of vaginal tract is important, and do the AMP take part in the defense of hair?