Patent ID: 8192925

Claim:
A method for killing or inhibiting growth of microbial cells comprising contacting the microbial cells with an antimicrobial peptide, wherein the antimicrobial peptide is encoded by a polynucleotide which hybridizes under high stringency conditions with (i) nucleotides 145 to 270 of SEQ ID NO:1, (ii) the cDNA sequence contained in nucleotides 1 to 270 of SEQ ID NO:1, or (iii) the complementary strand of (i) or (ii), wherein the high stringency conditions are defined as prehybridization and hybridization at 42° C. in 5×SSPE, 0.3% SDS, 200 mg/ml sheared and denatured salmon sperm DNA, and 50% formamide, following standard Southern blotting procedures for 12 to 24 hours, followed by washing three times each for 15 minutes using 2×SSC, 0.2% SDS at 65° C.