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Updated: Oct 25, 2026

Production and Visualization of Bacterial Spheroplasts and Protoplasts to Characterize Antimicrobial Peptide Localization
Published on: August 11, 2018
Occurrence and function of D-amino acid-containing peptides and proteins: antimicrobial peptides
G Mignogna1, M Simmaco, D Barra
1Istituto Pasteur-Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti, Dipartimento di Scienze Biochimiche A. Rossi Fanelli, Università La Sapienza, Roma, Italy.
Abstract:
Antimicrobial peptides are widely distributed in living organisms, where they represent a constitutive defence system acting as a first line of response against infections. The number of such peptides discovered has increased rapidly in the last few years, and more than 100 have been described from different sources. So far, antimicrobial peptides containing a D-amino acid have only been found in the skin secretions of frogs belonging to the genus Bombina. In the second position of the sequence of the mature peptides either D-alloisoleucine or D-leucine were detected. The D-amino acids are derived from the corresponding L forms by an as yet unknown posttranslational reaction.
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