Knowing more about where peptides come from and what they may be able to do in the immune system will make it easier to harness the immune system to cure illness.
Peptides’ potential to rouse the immune system to fight against pathogens has been speculated for over 30 years. Since then, advances in understanding how peptides are made and how they work in the immune system have bolstered attempts to harness the immune system to treat illness. Surprisingly, despite their apparent efficacy, most options have been developed experimentally without immunological knowledge. A more rational approach to a solution design is now possible because of advances in understanding the chemistry and pharmacological characteristics of antigenic and antimicrobial peptides and the biology of antigen processing, presentation, and detection by immune cells. This article discusses the significance of peptides in the innate and adaptive immune systems and how researchers may exploit these essential actors in the context of infectious diseases, cancer, and autoimmune disorders.
Significant advances have been made in elucidating the physiological functions of both adaptive and innate immunity in protecting organisms from environmental threats. Memory and targeted attack are critical components of adaptive immunity. By contrast, antimicrobial peptides, also known as host defense peptides, are a prime example of innate immunity, the first line of defense in the body’s shotgun strategy to fight diseases (HDPs).
The conventional wisdom is that HDPs are ineffective in providing the host with permanent or protective immunity because they are broad-spectrum antimicrobial peptides. In a Perspective article, researchers evaluate data that disputes the assumption that HDPs operate predominantly via cytotoxic pathways. Immunomodulatory effects, such as the downregulation of proinflammatory cytokines, may better explain how these peptides may impact microbial infections. The adaptive immune system is also influenced by HDPs, for example, by inducing B- and T-cell responses. Thanks to their extensive investigation, the innate defense regulator peptides, including natural and synthetic HDPs, have been used as adjuvants for microbial load management during wound healing.
Investigations purport that peptides may have a supporting role in adaptive immunity. Review article experts speculate essential features of adaptive immunity and trace a peptide’s journey from its production via proteolytic processing to its presentation to immune cells through major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. An essential part of adaptive immunity is the ability of immune cells to identify the difference between self (body) antigens and nonself (invader) or tumor cells.
Findings imply that antigenic peptides are “presented” to T cells of the immune system by the key actors MHC-I and MHC-II, which may form a noncovalent complex with these peptides in the setting of antigen-presenting cells. The structure and function of MHC-I and MHC-II and the length of bound peptides are distinct.
It has been hypothesized that the proteasome (for MHC-I peptides) and endolysosome system (for MHC-II peptides) may have unique roles in the complex process of peptide processing. However, little is known about their inner workings. The proteasome cleaves viral, bacterial, and natively altered proteins before they are transported to the surface of antigen-presenting cells, where the complex may trigger CD8+ T lymphocytes. This theory is the prevailing paradigm for the origin of MHC-I peptides. Recent data, however, suggests that short host-derived peptides may be transported to the MHC-I route. Expanding the understanding of the immune system’s workings will undoubtedly lead to novel methods of using immunological pathways in managing illness. You can find peptides online here if you are a researcher.
