Antimicrobial Peptides—or How Our Ancestors Learned to Control the Microbiome

to show that AMPs and lysozymes play a direct role in controlling the composition and abundance of the beneficial gut microbiome. By comparing mutant and wild-type flies, they demonstrated that the specific loss of AMPs and lysozyme production results in changes in microbiome abundance and composition. Furthermore, they established that AMPs and lysozyme are particularly essential in aging flies. Studies of early emerging metazoans, other invertebrates, and humans support the view of an ancestral function of AMPs in controlling microbial colonization.