What is a peptide

Peptide is a biologically active substance related to various cell functions in the organism. Its molecular structure is between amino acids and proteins. It is a compound formed by multiple amino acids combined by peptide bonds in a certain sequence.

Peptide research has become a key object of medical and molecular biology research. All countries in the world have allocated huge sums of money to establish peptide research and development centers of various sizes in order to make breakthroughs in this important field. At present, peptides have been widely used in the three major areas of clinical testing, medical research, disease prevention and treatment.

Principles of Peptide Synthesis

Peptide synthesis is a solid-phase synthesis sequence generally from the C-terminus (amino-terminus) to the N-terminus (carboxy-terminus). In the past, peptide synthesis was carried out in solution called liquid phase synthesis. Since Merrifield successfully developed a solid-phase peptide synthesis method in 1963, after continuous improvement and perfection, the solid-phase method has become a common technique in peptide and protein synthesis today, which greatly reduces the difficulty of product purification at each step. Peptide synthesis is generally divided into two types: solid-phase synthesis and liquid-phase peptide synthesis.

Peptide drug research

1. Cytokine mimic peptide

This is a technique that uses known cytokine receptors to screen cytokine mimic peptides from peptide libraries. The amino acid sequence of these mimetic peptides is different from the sequence of the cytokine in response, but the cytokine activity also has the advantage of small molecular weight. This mimetic peptide is still in the stage of preclinical or clinical research.

2. Peptides for cardiovascular diseases

It has now been discovered that many active ingredients are small molecular peptides. The active peptides processed and isolated from soybeans can be directly absorbed by the small intestine, which can prevent thrombosis, high blood pressure, and hyperlipidemia, and can also improve the body’s resistance to Tumor ability.

3. Antibacterial active peptide

The principle is that when insects receive a strong external stimulus, they will produce a large number of cationic peptides with antibacterial activity. At present, more than 100 kinds of antibacterial peptides have been screened. In vivo and in vitro experiments have shown that polypeptide antibacterial peptides not only have strong bactericidal ability, but also It can kill tumor cells. For example, the antibacterial peptide D screened from the body of silkworms has good application prospects. Gene technology can be used for production. There are also many active peptides in snake venom.

4. Diagnostic peptides

Peptides are also used in diagnostic reagents. Among them, the main function is to detect viruses, cells, spirochetes and other microorganisms or antibodies to parasites such as cysticercosis and trypanosoma. Peptide antigens are compared with natural microorganisms or parasite proteins. The specificity of the antigen is stronger and it is easy to prepare. Therefore, the false negative rate and background reaction of the detection antibody of the generally assembled detection reagent are very low, so it is often used in clinical applications.