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Publication Abstract from PubMed

Plants have developed a complex defense response system against pests and pathogens. Defensins, produced by plants as part of their innate immune response, form the family of small, basic, cysteine-rich proteins with activity primarily directed against fungal pathogens. In addition, plant defensins can show antibacterial activity and protease and insect amylase inhibitory activities. However, in gymnosperms, only antifungal activity of defensins has been described thus far. Here, we report antibacterial and insect alpha-amylase inhibition activities for defensin PsDef1 from P. sylvestris, the first defensin from gymnosperms with a broad range of biological activities described. We also report the solution NMR structure of PsDef1 and its dynamics properties assessed by a combination of experimental NMR and computational techniques. Collectively, our data provide an insight into structure, dynamics, and functional properties of PsDef1 that could be common between defensins from this taxonomic group.

NMR structure, conformational dynamics, and biological activity of PsDef1 defensin from Pinus sylvestris.,Khairutdinov BI, Ermakova EA, Yusypovych YM, Bessolicina EK, Tarasova NB, Toporkova YY, Kovaleva V, Zuev YF, Nesmelova IV Biochim Biophys Acta. 2017 Aug;1865(8):1085-1094. doi:, 10.1016/j.bbapap.2017.05.012. Epub 2017 May 17. PMID:28528214^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.