ArticlePloS one2011
Ancient antimicrobial peptides kill antibiotic-resistant pathogens: Australian mammals provide new options.
Article in PloS one, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 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
51 citing papers in PubMed, 106 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adaptive Immunity in Marsupials.Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology · 2026Review
- Emerging Chemical and Biological Materials Technologies in the Extraplanetary Environment.Nano-micro letters · 2026Review
- Characterization of antimicrobial peptide WAM-1 and its interactions with clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii.FEMS microbiology letters · 2026Article
- Evaluation of LLM-generated peptide as foundation template for discovery of effective encrypted AMPs against clinical superbugs.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Reintroduction training is instrumental in restoring the oral microbiota of giant pandas from "captivity" to "wildness".BMC microbiology · 2025Article
- Microbiota changes in lactation in the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus).FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- Koala reproduction and the implications for human research.F&S reports · 2025Article
- AMPed up immunity: 418 whole genomes reveal intraspecific diversity of koala antimicrobial peptides.Immunogenetics · 2025Article
- Marsupial cathelicidins: characterization, antimicrobial activity and evolution in this unique mammalian lineage.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Article
- Multidrug resistantCurrent research in microbial sciences · 2025Review
- Cathelicidins: Opportunities and Challenges in Skin Therapeutics and Clinical Translation.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Characterising the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) pouch microbiome in lactating and non-lactating females.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- PAM-1: an antimicrobial peptide with promise against ceftazidime-avibactam resistantFrontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- An Update on the Therapeutic Potential of Antimicrobial Peptides againstPharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Molecular de-extinction of ancient antimicrobial peptides enabled by machine learning.Cell host & microbe · 2023Article
- Tasmanian devil cathelicidins exhibit anticancer activity against Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) cells.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Gross Anatomy of the Female Reproductive System of Sugar Gliders (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Expression strategies for the efficient synthesis of antimicrobial peptides in plastids.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Mammals' humoral immune proteins and peptides targeting the bacterial envelope: from natural protection to therapeutic applications against multidrug-resistant Gram-negatives.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Review
- Epigenetic clock and methylation studies in marsupials: opossums, Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, and wallabies.GeroScience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo overcome the increasing resistance of pathogens to existing antibiotics the 10×'20 Initiative declared the urgent need for a global commitment to develop 10 new antimicrobial drugs by the year 2020. Naturally occurring animal antibiotics are an obvious place to start. The recently sequenced genomes of mammals that are divergent from human and mouse, including the tammar wallaby and the platypus, provide an opportunity to discover novel antimicrobials. Marsupials and monotremes are ideal potential sources of new antimicrobials because they give birth to underdeveloped immunologically naïve young that develop outside the sterile confines of a uterus in harsh pathogen-laden environments. While their adaptive immune system develops innate immune factors produced either by the mother or by the young must play a key role in protecting the immune-compromised young. In this study we focus on the cathelicidins, a key family of antimicrobial peptide genes. PRINCIPAL FINDING: We identified 14 cathelicidin genes in the tammar wallaby genome and 8 in the platypus genome. The tammar genes were expressed in the mammary gland during early lactation before the adaptive immune system of the young develops, as well as in the skin of the pouch young. Both platypus and tammar peptides were effective in killing a broad range of bacterial pathogens. One potent peptide, expressed in the early stages of tammar lactation, effectively killed multidrug-resistant clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumannii. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: Marsupial and monotreme young are protected by antimicrobial peptides that are potent, broad spectrum and salt resistant. The genomes of our distant relatives may hold the key for the development of novel drugs to combat multidrug-resistant pathogens.
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.