Immune & Antimicrobial
Dermcidin
Human sweat is not simply salt water. Dermcidin is secreted into it continuously, unprompted by any infection, and it is part of why skin that touches everything is not infected by everything. It kills by assembling zinc-dependent channels through bacterial membranes, and a fragment of it applied daily to Acinetobacter-infected wounds in mice cut the bacterial count by 5.3 orders of magnitude over ten days — roughly two-hundred-thousand-fold — while closing the wounds faster. That mouse work is the high point of the record: in humans dermcidin has only ever been measured, never administered, and it is studied as something the body already produces, not as something anyone has been given.
Last updated
Mechanism
Proteolysis of the precursor yields DCD-1L, which forms zinc-dependent ion channels in bacterial membranes.
Reported effects
What sources associate with this compound. Reported categories, not outcomes we have graded — each would need its own citation and rung.
- Innate skin defence research
- Antibiofilm research
- Sweat immunity context
Dosing on file unverified
Not administered as therapeutic; observational only
Carried from a source that labels it unverified, and reproduced with that label attached. A record of what is reported, not a recommendation. No citation on this page establishes it.
Literature on file 5
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review or editorial
Human and Marine Host Defense Peptides for Healthy Skin. graded on: indexed as "review-article" - secondary literature, not a study — “review-article”
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review or editorial
Antimycobacterial peptides as natural therapeutics for tuberculosis: mechanisms and structural features. graded on: indexed as "review-article" - secondary literature, not a study — “review-article”
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review or editorial
Pro-Dermcidin as an Emerging Regulator of Innate Immunity in Sepsis. graded on: indexed as "review-article" - secondary literature, not a study — “review-article”
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in vitro
In vitro antibiofilm activity of dermcidin derived peptides against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus pathogens. graded on: an in-vitro system — “In vitro”
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animal in vivo
Dermcidin has antiviral activity and protects against influenza. graded on: an animal model — read from the indexed abstract — “mice”
Identity
- UniProt
- P81605 (precursor)
Notes unverified prose
Endogenous peptide; no therapeutic dosing; studied as biomarker in acne, HCC, breast cancer; no human trials as drug; Endogenous; biomarker studies
Not on file 10
8 of the 8 fields we track hold nothing on this record, and each says why. 2 further absences are named below. A blank field is a bug; a named absence is a finding.
- molecular weightnothing we hold supplies it
- molecular formulanothing we hold supplies it
- CAS registry numbernothing we hold supplies it
- PubChem identifiernothing we hold supplies it
- amino-acid sequencenothing we hold supplies it
- SMILES stringnothing we hold supplies it
- InChInothing we hold supplies it
- InChI keynothing we hold supplies it
- half-lifenothing we hold supplies it
- route of administrationnot applicable to this compound
Each field links to every other record missing the same thing. The full ledger holds 765 gaps across 163 records.