Defensin Beta 131 (DEFb131)

Mammalian beta-defensins are an important family of innate host defense peptides with pleiotropic activities. As a first step to study the evolutionary relationship and biological role of the beta-defensin family, identified their complete repertoires in the human, chimpanzee, mouse, rat, and dog following systemic, genome-wide computational searches. Although most beta-defensin genes are composed of two exons separated by an intron of variable length, some contain an additional one or two exons encoding an internal pro-sequence, a segment of carboxy-terminal mature sequences or untranslated regions. DEFB131 had an ambiguous chromosomal location that could not be clearly determined with the current BLAT search. DEFB131 was moderately expressed in the prostate and small intestine.