Current Protein and Peptide Science - Volume 5, Issue 6, 2004

The practical development of modern vaccines has been greatly advanced by the availability of synthetic antigens. The use of such synthetic antigens might be more acceptable for human therapy since synthetic peptides do not have any of the potential dangers associated with the induction of an infection by recombinant viruses. However, synthetic peptides alone are often not immunogenic enough, and a strong i Read More

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in de novo design and construction of novel synthetic peptides that mimic protein secondary structures, i.e., turns, helices and sheets. The unique structural influences exerted by unsubstituted, non-coded, non-chiral βamino acid, i.e., βalanine (βAla; 3- or beta- aminopropionic acid) on peptide backbone, when inserted into peptide chain comprised α-amino acids, offer Read More

The neuropeptides, as well as their respective receptors, are widely distributed throughout the mammalian central nervous system. During learning and memory processes, besides structural synaptic remodeling, changes are observed at molecular and metabolic levels with the alterations in neurotransmitter and neuropeptide synthesis and release. While there is consensus that brain cholinergic neurotransmission plays a criti Read More

Interferon-α (IFNα) is a recombinant protein widely used in the therapy of several neoplasms such as myeloma, renal cell carcinoma, epidermoid cervical and head and neck tumours and melanoma. IFNα, the first cytokine to be produced by recombinant DNA technology, has emerged as an important regulator of cancer cell growth and differentiation, affecting cellular communication and signal transduction pathways. Howev Read More

Combinatorial chemistry and biology have become popular methods for the identification of bio-active molecules in drug discovery. A widely used technique in combinatorial biology is “phage display”, by which peptides, antibody fragments and enzymes are displayed on the surface of bacteriophages, and can be selected by simple procedures of biopanning. The construction of phage libraries of peptides or antibody fra Read More

Brain asymmetry is understood as an anatomical, functional or neurochemical difference between the two hemispheres. It is not a static but rather a dynamic phenomenon in which both environmental and endogenous factors act as modulators. Aging modifies brain asymmetry, and an imbalance in specific asymmetries characterizes some brain disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, infantile autism or Alzheimer's Read More

The review presents three hypotheses concerning the amino acid complementarity: 1) the Mekler-Blalock antisense hypothesis; 2) the Root-Bernstein approach based on stereochemical complementarity of amino acids and antiamino acids coded by anticodons read in parallel with the coding DNA strand; 3) Siemion hypothesis resulting from the periodicity of the genetic code. The current state of knowledge as well as t Read More