| Type: | Family | Name: | Defensin, insect |
| Description: | Insect defensins are a diverse family of anti-bacterial peptides, largely active against Gram-positive bacteria [, , , , ]. All these peptides range in length from 38 to 51 amino acids. There are six conserved cysteines all involved in intrachain disulphide bonds.A schematic representation of peptides from the arthropod defensin family is shown below. +----------------------------+ | | xxCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxCxxxCxxxxxxxxxCxxxxxCxCxx | | | |+---|---------------+ | +-----------------+'C': conserved cysteine involved in a disulphide bond. Although low level sequence similarities have been reported [] between the insect defensins and mammalian defensins, the topological arrangement of the disulphide bonds as well as the tertiary structure [] are completely different in the two families. | Short Name: | Defensin_insect |
