HOUSTON – A human peptide that acts as a natural antibiotic against invading microbes can also bind to the body’s own DNA and trigger an immune response in the absence of an infection, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in an early online publication in Nature.“This combination of the peptide and self-DNA activates the same immune response pathway as a virus does,” says senior author Michel Gilliet, M.D., assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Departments of Immunology and Melanoma Medical Oncology.
