Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 7, Issue 4, 2006

Small Molecule Versus Peptides The following is an excerpt from C&E News Volume 83, Number 11 pp. 17-24. Imagine a conversation between a small molecule and a peptide on a make-believe pharmacological playground. The small molecule would tout its virtues of small size, low price, oral availability, ability to cross membranes, and straightforward synthesis. The peptide would respond: "True, I may be bigger, more expensi Read More

Cationic antimicrobial peptides serve as critical defense molecules protecting the host from invading bacteria, viruses and fungi. These antimicrobial peptides are widely distributed in nature and in vertebrates they have been localized to numerous tissues and cells. Cationic antimicrobial peptides can be expressed constitutively or under certain circumstances they can be induced in response to infection, infla Read More

Levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL) and its major protein component, apolipoprotein (apo) A-I, are strongly inversely correlated to risk of atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases. A number of properties of apo A-I may contribute to this protection, including removal of cholesterol from peripheral tissues to the liver (reverse cholesterol transport), anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative activities, and modulation of vas Read More

Steroids are the best known anti-inflammatory drugs and have been in use for more than 50 years. Their chronic use however was limited by safety concerns. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) including COX-2 inhibitors although devoid of steroid side effects often possess gastrointestinal side effects. In addition recent data suggest that chronic use of some Cox inhibitors is associated with cardiovascular ris Read More

This review focuses on the synthetic progress of some naturally occurring cyclic peptides and depsipeptides apart from the development of peptidomimetics incorporating unnatural amino acids that have not been covered in the earlier reviews.

The protein and peptide therapeutics have become an important class of drugs due to advancement in molecular biology and recombinant technology. There are more than 100 biopharmaceutical products approved and generating revenue of more than US $56 billion. A safe, effective and patient friendly delivery of these agents is the key to commercial success. Currently, most of therapeutic proteins are administered Read More

Recent efforts combining nanotechnology and magnetic properties resulted in the development and commercialization of magnetic nanoparticles that can be used as carriers for nucleic acids for in vitro transfection and for gene therapy approaches including DNA-based vaccination strategies. The efficiency of intracellular delivery is still a limiting factor for basic cell biological research and also for emerging technologies such a Read More

Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) is an increasingly important tool for determining low concentrations and dynamics of molecules in solution. Oftentimes triplet transitions give rise to fast blinking effects, which are accounted for by including an exponential term in the fitting of the autocorrelation function (ACF). In such cases, concomitant saturation effects also modify the amplitude and shape of the remaining part Read More

The congenital CMV infection is the most common intrauterine transmitted viral infection. Since the first description in 1904 a lot of knowledge on epidemiology has been gained. Socio-economic maternal factors play a major role, and seem to be one of the major reasons for the differences of prevalence of congenital CMV infection between Europe and North America. Concerning the interaction of CMV and placental cells, reac Read More