“…For prevention of bacterial infections and their related symptoms (e.g., gram-negative bacterial septic shock), much attention has been focused on the low-molecular-weight cationic antimicrobial peptides that possess both antibacterial and LPS-neutralizing activities (5,14,16,17,20,28,33,40,49). Previously, it was demonstrated that in addition to exhibiting potent antibacterial activity against gram-positive and gramnegative bacteria (34), hCAP18/LL-37 could bind to the lipid-A moiety of LPS and inhibit the interaction of LPS with LBP, which transports LPS to CD14 ϩ cells, thereby suppressing the binding of LPS to CD14 ϩ cells (33) and possibly attenuating Toll-like receptor-mediated CD14 ϩ cell activation (2,4,19,48).…”