Identification of dermcidin in human gestational tissue and characterization of its proteolytic activity.
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Lee Motoyama JP, Kim-Motoyama H, Kim P, Nakagama H, Miyagawa K, Suzuki K
Identification of dermcidin in human gestational tissue and characterization of its proteolytic activity.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007 Jun 15;357(4):828-33. Epub 2007 Mar 28.
- PubMed ID
- 17448443 [ View in PubMed]
- Abstract
Dermcidin (DCD) is a gene for an antimicrobial peptide DCD-1 in human sweat glands. It has become evident that the gene products of DCD exhibit a wide range of biological functions. In addition to its antimicrobial function, it is reported to be a neuronal survival factor, a putative oncogene in breast cancer and a proteolysis-inducing factor (PIF) that induces skeletal muscle proteolysis to cause cancer cachexia. Here we identified DCD in human placental tissue and determined its previously uncharacterized proteolytic activity. We also show that recombinant DCD induced an invasive phenotype in a human choriocarcinoma cell line JAR in vitro. This work suggests that DCD might participate in the regulation of placental function by means of modulating the proteolytic cascades on the trophoblastic cell surface, and might be involved in the pathophysiology of pregnancy-related disorders, as well as cancer and neuronal diseases.