Since the early 19th century, host-defense peptides (HDPs) have been known to play a crucial role in innate host defense. Subsequent work has demonstrated their role in adaptive immunity as well as their involvement in cancer and also a number of inflammatory and/or autoimmune diseases. In addition to these multiple functional activities, several studies have shown that HDP accumulation might be correlated with various human diseases and, therefore, could be used as a biomarkers for such. Thus, research has aimed to validate the clinical use of HDPs for diagnosis, prognosis, and further treatment. In this review, we outline the most recent findings related to the use of HDPs as biomarkers, their clinical and epidemiological value, and the techniques used to determine the levels of HDPs.

自19世纪初期以来，已知宿主防御肽（HDP）在先天宿主防御中起着至关重要的作用。随后的工作证明了它们在适应性免疫中的作用以及它们参与癌症以及许多炎性和/或自身免疫性疾病的作用。除这些多功能活动外，多项研究表明HDP积累可能与多种人类疾病相关，因此可以用作此类疾病的生物标记。因此，研究旨在验证HDP在诊断，预后和进一步治疗中的临床应用。在这篇综述中，我们概述了与将HDP用作生物标记物有关的最新发现，它们的临床和流行病学价值以及用于确定HDP含量的技术。