- AMP are protein molecules that are found in all organisms having potent anti-microbial activity.
- They are most abundantly found in keratinocytes, sebocytes and sweat glands.
- There are two types of AMPs. 1- Cathelicidins and 2- Defensins
- The only known human cathelicidin is LL-37(Schauber and Gallo 2008).
- These molecules are responsible for stopping antimicrobial invasion of skin, recruit immune cells for providing adaptive immune response and innate immune response.
- They induce apoptosis in athogenic and cancerous cells.
A good question would be even though in psoriasis barrier function is disrupted still we don’t see so many bacterial infections in psoriatic skin. Why?
References:
Schauber and Gallo 2008. Antimicrobial peptides and the skin immune defense system. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 122(2), pp. 261–266. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2008.03.027.
