Fl Entomol 1970, 53:229–232.CrossRef 31. Abramoff MD, Magelhaes PJ, Ram SJ: Image Processing with ImageJ. Biophotonics Int 2004, 11:36–42. Authors’ contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: RG, SS and HF. Performed the experiments: SS. Analysed the confocal images: MJF. Wrote the paper: RG and HF. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Opaganib in vitro Humans are living in a constant

struggle with infectious microorganisms and whilst improved hygiene has been essential to control such organisms, one of the major steps forward has been the discovery and use of antibiotics. However, the high rate at which bacteria become resistant to currently used antibiotics is regarded as a major threat to the future treatment of infectious diseases in both humans and livestock [1, 2]. Therefore, there is a growing demand for new types of antimicrobial compounds and interest is focused on host defence peptides (HDPs) as novel therapeutic agents. HDPs are a unique and diverse group of peptides, which can be grouped into different classes, based on their amino acid composition and structure. check details In humans and other mammals, the defensins and the cathelicidins constitute the two main HDP families. The cathelicidins vary widely in sequence, composition

and structure, but share a highly conserved N-terminal structural domain (cathelin) linked to a highly variable cathelicidin peptide domain [3]. The defensins are more uniform, small cysteine-rich cationic peptides [4]. Defensins have well-established antimicrobial activity against a broad spectrum of pathogens, and in addition they have been shown to have immunostimulatory functions on both innate and adaptive immunity [5]. This has prompted a massive interest in synthetic defensins as novel antimicrobial candidates for therapeutic use. Recently, the antimicrobial peptide, plectasin isolated from a saprophytic fungus, was described [6]. Plectasin is a defensin, which has broad activity against several Aldehyde dehydrogenase species of Gram-positive bacteria and combined with very low toxicity in mice and on human keratinocytes and erythrocytes, plectasin holds promise

as a novel anti-infective treatment [6, 7]. In the present study, we addressed the response of two human pathogens, S. aureus and L. monocytogenes to plectasin. These two pathogens differ in sensitivity towards plectasin with MIC values of 16-32 mg/L for methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA), and above 64 mg/L for the less sensitive L. monocytogenes [6, 7]. In addition, the two bacteria represent different routes of infection and may be exposed to different arrays of HDPs. S. aureus is a hospital- and community-acquired pathogen that causes a wide range of diseases including septicaemia, toxic-shock syndrome and food poisoning [8]. S. aureus is primarily extracellular and produces extracellular enzymes and toxins that cause damage to tissues. L.