Antimicrobial peptides are proteins that have been found to be an important factor in the natural immune response to a variety of pathogens. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a respiratory pathogen with the capability to cause serious upper and lower respiratory infections in infants and children and is a major viral cause of infant mortality. There is currently no functional vaccine for the virus, as recent efforts have been hindered by the virus's low immunogenicity, its ability to effectively mutate, and underlying instabilities of potential vaccines. Previous studies have shown that antimicrobial peptides may affect viral replication and spread of RSV. Our study evaluates the susceptibility of chimeric strains of RSV that express different fusion (F) and attachment (G) proteins to susceptibilities to inactivation by LL-37 and human beta-defensins (hBDs) hBD-1, hBD-3, and hBD-4. We show that LL-37 and hBD-3 result in dose-dependent, strain-independent inactivation of RSV, whereas treatment with either hBD-1 or hBD-4 appears more variable between strains. This suggests a potential role of the viral structural proteins in mitigating the inhibitory effects of the peptides. This study provides the first evidence of the sensitivity of RSV to several hBDs and indicates a role of LL-37 and beta-defensins in both limiting establishment of natural RSV infections and in the therapeutic treatment of severe RSV disease.
Keywords: LL-37; antimicrobial peptides; cathelicidin; human beta-defensins; respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).