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1 Respiratory Division, Departments of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto M5B 1W8; 2 Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto M5G 1X5; 3 Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology and 5 Division of Thoracic Surgery, Toronto General Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2C4, Canada; and 4 Department of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, Los Angeles, California 90095
Studies of the antimicrobial activity of neutrophil defensins have mostly been carried out in microbiological media, and their effects on the host defense in physiological conditions are unclear. We examined 1) the antibacterial activity of defensins in physiological media with and without lung tissue present, 2) the effect of defensins on hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production by lung tissue that had been exposed to bacteria, and 3) the effect of diphenyleneiodonium (DPI), an inhibitor of reactive oxygen species formation, on the antibacterial activity of defensins in the presence of lung tissue. Defensins were incubated with Escherichia coli or Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the absence or presence of primary cultured mouse lung explants. Defensins reduced bacterial counts by ~65-fold and ~25-fold, respectively, at 48 h; bacterial counts were further decreased by ~600-fold and ~12,000-fold, respectively, in the presence of lung tissue. Defensins induced H2O2 production by lung tissue, and the rate of killing of E. coli by defensins was reduced by ~2,500-fold in the presence of 10 µM DPI. We conclude that defensins exert a significant antimicrobial effect under physiological conditions and that this effect is enhanced in the presence of lung tissue by a mechanism that involves the production of reactive oxygen species.
reactive oxygen species; host defense; antioxidant; NADPH oxidase; lung injury
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