DEFA3

Defensin, alpha 3 (DEFA3) also known as human alpha defensin 3, human neutrophil peptide 3 (HNP-3) or neutrophil defensin 3 is a human protein that is encoded by the DEFA3 gene. Human alpha defensin 3 belongs to the alpha defensin family of antimicrobial peptides.

Defensin 3, dimer, Human.

DEFA3
Available structures PDB Human UniProt search: PDBe RCSB List of PDB id codes 1DFN, 1ZMH, 1ZMI, 1ZMK, 2PM4, 2PM5
Identifiers
Aliases	DEFA3, DEF3, HNP-3, HNP3, HP-3, HP3, defensin alpha 3
External IDs	OMIM: 604522; HomoloGene: 128756; GeneCards: DEFA3; OMA:DEFA3 - orthologs
Gene location (Human) Chr. Chromosome 8 (human) Band 8p23.1 Start 7,015,869 bp End 7,018,297 bp
RNA expression pattern Bgee Human Mouse (ortholog) Top expressed in bone marrow bone marrow cells monocyte granulocyte right lung blood spleen upper lobe of left lung placenta right lobe of liver n/a More reference expression data BioGPS n/a
Gene ontology Molecular function protein homodimerization activity molecular function Cellular component extracellular region extracellular exosome azurophil granule lumen Golgi lumen extracellular space Biological process defense response to fungus intracellular estrogen receptor signaling pathway defense response to bacterium innate immune response in mucosa defense response defense response to virus antimicrobial humoral response antimicrobial humoral immune response mediated by antimicrobial peptide killing of cells of other organism antibacterial humoral response defense response to Gram-negative bacterium defense response to Gram-positive bacterium membrane disruption in other organism cellular response to lipopolysaccharide Sources:Amigo / QuickGO
Orthologs Species Human Mouse Entrez 1668 n/a Ensembl ENSG00000239839 ENSG00000284835 n/a UniProt P59666 n/a RefSeq (mRNA) NM_005217 n/a RefSeq (protein) NP_005208 n/a Location (UCSC) Chr 8: 7.02 – 7.02 Mb n/a PubMed search n/a
Wikidata
View/Edit Human View/Edit Mouse

Function

Defensins are a family of microbicidal and cytotoxic peptides thought to be involved in host defense. They are abundant in the granules of neutrophils and also found in the epithelia of mucosal surfaces such as those of the intestine, respiratory tract, urinary tract, and vagina. Members of the defensin family are highly similar in protein sequence and distinguished by a conserved cysteine motif. Several alpha defensin genes are clustered on chromosome 8. The protein encoded by this gene, defensin, alpha 3, is found in the microbicidal granules of neutrophils and likely plays a role in phagocyte-mediated host defense. Several alpha defensin genes are clustered on chromosome 8. This peptide differs from defensin, alpha 1 by only one amino acid. This gene and the gene encoding defensin, alpha 1 are both subject to copy number variation.

Further reading

• Kocsis AK, Ocsovszky I, Tiszlavicz L, et al. (2009). "Helicobacter pylori induces the release of alpha-defensin by human granulocytes". Inflamm. Res. 58 (5): 241–7. doi:10.1007/s00011-008-8100-z. PMID 19169650. S2CID 29257427.
• Strausberg RL, Feingold EA, Grouse LH, et al. (2002). "Generation and initial analysis of more than 15,000 full-length human and mouse cDNA sequences". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99 (26): 16899–903. Bibcode:2002PNAS...9916899M. doi:10.1073/pnas.242603899. PMC 139241. PMID 12477932.
• Aldred PM, Hollox EJ, Armour JA (2005). "Copy number polymorphism and expression level variation of the human alpha-defensin genes DEFA1 and DEFA3". Hum. Mol. Genet. 14 (14): 2045–52. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddi209. PMID 15944200.

This article incorporates text from the United States National Library of Medicine, which is in the public domain.