antioxidants Review Redox Active Antimicrobial Peptides in Controlling Growth of Microorganisms at Body Barriers Piotr Brzoza 1 , Urszula Godlewska 1,† , Arkadiusz Borek 2, Agnieszka Morytko 1, Aneta Zegar 1 , Patrycja Kwiecinska 1 , Brian A. Zabel 3, Artur Osyczka 2, Mateusz Kwitniewski 1 and Joanna Cichy 1,* 1 Department of Immunology, Faculty of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, 30-387 Kraków, Poland;
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[email protected] (M.K.) 2 Department of Molecular Biophysics, Faculty of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, 30-387 Kraków, Poland;
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[email protected] † Present address: Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Physiotherapy, The Jerzy Kukuczka Academy of Physical Education, 40-065 Katowice, Poland. Abstract: Epithelia in the skin, gut and other environmentally exposed organs display a variety of mechanisms to control microbial communities and limit potential pathogenic microbial invasion. Naturally occurring antimicrobial proteins/peptides and their synthetic derivatives (here collectively Citation: Brzoza, P.; Godlewska, U.; referred to as AMPs) reinforce the antimicrobial barrier function of epithelial cells. Understanding Borek, A.; Morytko, A.; Zegar, A.; how these AMPs are functionally regulated may be important for new therapeutic approaches to Kwiecinska, P.; Zabel, B.A.; Osyczka, A.; Kwitniewski, M.; Cichy, J.