Immunity to influenza mediated by salivary antimicrobial peptides

 

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are promising candidates for the development of new therapeutic agents that can complement conventional therapies to fight infections. They generally have a broad spectrum of action, require short contact time to induce microbial death or virus inactivation and they are often less prone to generating microbial resistance.

Our group has identified an anti-influenza AMP found as part of the innate immune system in humans. We are focused on the study of the inhibitory capacity of the anti-influenza peptide and its variants against the main currently circulating virus strains. Besides, we are studying their levels in diverse human samples from different groups of people comparing their genomic singularities too, that could explain the different degrees of susceptibility to infection.

Hemagglutination Inhibition test (HAI) showing the inhibition of alive influenza virus subtype H1N1 with decreasing concentration of AMP in mg/ml (first row) and loss of its inhibitory capacity with the addition of trypsin (second row). Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) for this AMP against H1N1 influenza subtype alive is 1mg/ml. CN: negative control; CV: positive control.

Participants: PhD. Paula Corell-Escuin and Dr. María D. Ferrer García