ArticleInfection and immunity2009
Electropositive charge in alpha-defensin bactericidal activity: functional effects of Lys-for-Arg substitutions vary with the peptide primary structure.
Article in Infection and immunity, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Human alpha-defensin 5 stabilizes the enterovirus A71 capsid and blocks infection.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Mechanistic Insights into Human Defensin Antimicrobial Activity from Membrane Simulations.The Journal of membrane biology · 2026Article
- Mouse α-Defensins: Structural and Functional Analysis of the 17 Cryptdin Isoforms Identified from a Single Jejunal Crypt.Infection and immunity · 2023Article
- Dissecting peripheral protein-membrane interfaces.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Improving Fmoc Solid Phase Synthesis of Human Beta Defensin 3.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Antimicrobial peptide ROAD-1 triggers phase change in local membrane environment to execute its activity.Journal of molecular modeling · 2019Article
- Detection of α-defensin in eosinophils in helminth-infected mouse model.The Journal of veterinary medical science · 2018Article
- An engineered arginine-rich α-helical antimicrobial peptide exhibits broad-spectrum bactericidal activity against pathogenic bacteria and reduces bacterial infections in mice.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- The potency of the broad spectrum bacteriocin, bactofencin A, against staphylococci is highly dependent on primary structure, N-terminal charge and disulphide formation.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- A Simplified Derivative of Human Defensin 5 with Potent and Efficient Activity against Multidrug-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii.Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2018Article
- Probing the disparate effects of arginine and lysine residues on antimicrobial peptide/bilayer association.Biochimica et biophysica acta. Biomembranes · 2017Article
- Targeting and inactivation of bacterial toxins by human defensins.Biological chemistry · 2017Review
- Guardians of the Gut: Enteric Defensins.Frontiers in microbiology · 2017Review
- Microbicidal effects of α- and θ-defensins against antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.Innate immunity · 2015Article
- Nonenzymatic conversion of ADP-ribosylated arginines to ornithine alters the biological activities of human neutrophil peptide-1.Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950) · 2014Article
- Guanidino groups greatly enhance the action of antimicrobial peptidomimetics against bacterial cytoplasmic membranes.Biochimica et biophysica acta · 2014Article
- Article
- Two interdependent mechanisms of antimicrobial activity allow for efficient killing in nylon-3-based polymeric mimics of innate immunity peptides.Biochimica et biophysica acta · 2014Article
- Hydrophobic determinants of α-defensin bactericidal activity.Infection and immunity · 2014Article
- The different interactions of lysine and arginine side chains with lipid membranes.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Cationic amino acids contribute to alpha-defensin bactericidal activity. Curiously, although Arg and Lys have equivalent electropositive charges at neutral pH, alpha-defensins contain an average of nine Arg residues per Lys residue. To investigate the role of high alpha-defensin Arg content, all Arg residues in mouse Paneth cell alpha-defensin cryptdin 4 (Crp4) and rhesus myeloid alpha-defensin 4 (RMAD-4) were replaced with Lys to prepare (R/K)-Crp4 and (R/K)-RMAD-4, respectively. Lys-for-Arg replacements in Crp4 attenuated bactericidal activity and slowed the kinetics of Escherichia coli ML35 cell permeabilization, and (R/K)-Crp4 required longer exposure times to reduce E. coli cell survival. In marked contrast, Lys substitutions in RMAD-4 improved microbicidal activity against certain bacteria and permeabilized E. coli more effectively. Therefore, Arg-->Lys substitutions attenuated activity in Crp4 but not in RMAD-4, and the functional consequences of Arg-->Lys replacements in alpha-defensins are dependent on the peptide primary structure. In addition, the bactericidal effects of (R/K)-Crp4 and (R/K)-RMAD-4 were more sensitive to inhibition by NaCl than those of the native peptides, suggesting that the high Arg content of alpha-defensins may be under selection to confer superior microbicidal function under physiologic conditions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.