Editorial: Antimicrobial Peptides and Complement - Maximising the Inflammatory Response.

Striking commonalities in the roles of complement and antimicrobial peptides have recently been reported; their abilities to apply selection pressures on a bacterial population in the bloodstream (1), to contribute to enhanced phagocytosis of opsonized bacteria (2), and to interactively determine skin microbiome (3). Evolutionary roots for complement proteins and antimicrobial peptides are ancient (4). Predating the avenue of somatic recombination, antimicrobial peptides and complement have further emerged as modulators of cell activities that are part of the adaptive immune response. Therefore, antimicrobial peptides and complement were logical contenders for a focused analysis to distil from a wide complexity a range of overlapping and distinct activities that could serve to maximize local and systemic inflammatory responses. [Opening paragraph]