BOC Sciences provides feature articles on innovative products or services for research on peptides, amino acids, PNA monomers, and peptide synthetic resins.
Peptides are compounds formed when alpha amino acids are linked together by peptide bonds. The application scenarios cover new hotspots and valuable research fields, such as disease-related research, cosmetic peptides, and protein modification.
Peptides can be used in many diseases and have very good curative effects.
Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease caused by multiple etiologies and is characterized by chronic hyperglycemia. Peptides can activate and repair islet cells, promote islet cells to synthesize insulin, and regulate blood sugar in both directions.
Cancer (malignant tumor) destroys the structure and function of tissues and organs and has become one of the most common fatal diseases. Peptides can inhibit the growth and metastasis of cancer cells, kill cancer cells, remove toxins in cancer cells, and have the effect of preventing, controlling and adjuvant therapy of tumors.
Cardiovascular disease is a general term for cardiovascular and peripheral vascular diseases, including heart failure, coronary heart disease, arrhythmia, hypertension, etc. Peptides can remove intravascular lipids, regulate heart function, restore cardiovascular functions, and have certain curative effects on cardiovascular diseases.
The immune system is an important system for the body to carry out immune response and immune function. It can find and remove foreign bodies, foreign pathogenic microorganisms and other factors that cause fluctuations in the internal environment. Peptides can play a role in regulating immunity, antibacterial, and nutritional supplements.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a virus that causes a deficiency in the body's immune system. HIV destroys the body's T lymphocytes, thereby blocking the process of cellular immunity and humoral immunity, leading to paralysis of the immune system, and eventually leading to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Antiretroviral therapy minimizes HIV replication.
Human papilloma virus (HPV) is a papilloma virus that uses humans as its sole host. HPV has a high degree of tissue specificity and can infect human epidermal and mucosal epithelial cells, and can cause a variety of benign and malignant tumors. E6/E7 refers to two gene fragments of HPV, and the expression of its protein is a necessary factor for cell carcinogenesis.
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive central neurodegenerative disease of unknown etiology. Alzheimer's disease mostly occurs in old age or pre-senile age, and develops slowly and irreversibly. Clinically, it is mainly manifested as generalized dementia such as abnormal memory, cognition, thinking and behavior. Research is now focused on reducing beta-amyloid peptides, the causative agent of Alzheimer's disease.
Osteoporosis is a systemic multi-causal skeletal disease that is prone to fractures due to changes in systemic bone mass and microstructure of bone tissue, resulting in increased bone fragility. At present, the clinical anti-osteoporosis drugs are mainly divided into two categories. One is a drug that inhibits bone resorption, and the other is a drug that promotes bone formation.
Gastrointestinal peptide hormones are widely distributed in the gastrointestinal mucosa and inner nervous system, and have important regulatory effects on gastrointestinal smooth muscle movement, mucosal gland secretion, blood supply, local inflammatory cells, immune active cells and cytokines.
Cosmetic peptides have the advantages of safety, stability, easy absorption and good effect. Adding them to cosmetics can fundamentally improve and repair various skin problems.
Peptides are widely used in cosmetics, providing a new direction and idea for the research and development and application of cosmetics. The main cosmetic effects of peptides used in cosmetics are to promote cell metabolism, activate cell activity, inhibit cell degeneration, repair damaged cells, promote collagen synthesis and promote cell healing.
Peptide modification is mainly the modification of the main chain structure and side chain groups of the peptide chain. Modifications can alter the physicochemical properties of peptides to optimize their effective utilization in vivo.
Cyclization is the most direct way to synthesize cyclic peptides, especially for peptides with larger structural backbones. According to the cyclization method of cyclic peptides, it can be divided into side chain -to-side chain type, head-to-tail type, side chain-to-end type, and disulfide-bridge, etc.
The phosphorylation modification of peptides mainly refers to the conversion of the side chain hydroxyl groups of serine (Ser), threonine (Thr) or tyrosine (Tyr) residues in the peptide chain into the form of phosphate. Phosphorylated tyrosine, phosphorylated threonine, and phosphorylated serine derivatives can either be introduced into the polypeptide during synthesis or formed after polypeptide synthesis.
Fluorescence modification of peptides is an important content in the field of peptide synthesis. Fluorescent modifications can be attached to the N-terminus or C-terminus of the peptide sequence by covalent bonds. Fluorescent substance-modified peptides can be used for in vivo imaging, protein binding and localization studies.
Individual peptides are often too small to elicit an adequate immune response. Carrier proteins with many epitopes are beneficial to stimulate helper T cells and further induce B cell immune responses. Conjugation of peptides to carrier proteins (such as KLH, BSA, OVA) can increase the size of the antigen and enhance immunity, resulting in highly efficient antibodies.
Multiple antigenic peptides (MAPs) are a class of immunogenic macromolecular polymeric peptides consisting of a lysine core and multiple identical peptide molecules. MAPs utilize the α and ε amino groups of lysine to polymerize homotypic or different types of synthetic antigenic peptides, and then adsorb to different immune mediators for targeting and information transmission.
Glycosylation of peptides is the process of linking monosaccharides (such as glucose, galactose) or polysaccharides to peptides through chemical bonds. The peptides obtained by glycosylation are called glycopeptides. Glycopeptides are important analogs of sugar modification on proteins, and are protein fragments modified with sugars.
Peptides are biologically active substances with great application potential. However, the modification of small molecule peptides is difficult and the half-life is extremely short. Today, these problems can be solved by applying PEGylation modification technology to peptides. The PEGylated peptides have better pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties than unmodified peptides.
As histone methylation has been extensively studied, methylated peptides have become an important tool for studying histone methylation. Lys and Arg methylation modifications of peptides are currently achieved by applying methylated starting materials in peptide solid-phase synthesis.
Cage peptides refer to a class of peptides with a three-dimensional structure and are a class of hollow cage-like macromolecules. The caged peptides have an optically removable protecting group, which can shield the polypeptide from binding to the receptor. Caged peptides can be used in anti-tumor treatment.
By modifying the N-terminus of the peptide, its structure and physicochemical properties can be changed, thereby improving its stability and biological activity. There are many methods for N-terminal modification of peptides, such as acetylation, myristoylation, and fluorescent reagent modification.
The specific modification of the C-terminus can prolong the in vivo metabolic half-life of the peptide, reduce the immunogenicity or reduce the toxic side effects. Efficient and accurate C-terminal modification of peptides is a hot field in the research of biologically active macromolecules, and it is also an urgently needed technology in the industrial production of peptides.
Amino acids are organic compounds containing basic amino groups and acidic carboxyl groups. Amino acids are the basic units that make up proteins. Application scenarios cover disease research, food, medicine and other fields.
The role of amino acids on the human body is to synthesize protein, maintain the body's total nitrogen balance, improve immunity, etc.
Essential amino acids refer to amino acids that cannot be synthesized by the human body (or other vertebrates) or whose synthesis rate cannot meet the needs of the human body, but must be provided by food. For adults, there are eight essential amino acids, namely lysine, tryptophan, phenylalanine, methionine, threonine, isoleucine, leucine, and valine. In addition, histidine is necessary for infants.
Non-essential amino acids refer to amino acids that the human body can synthesize by itself or convert from other amino acids, and do not necessarily have to be directly ingested from food. Such amino acids include glutamic acid, glutamine, alanine, glycine, cysteine, aspartic acid, asparagine, proline, serine and tyrosine.
Protected amino acids refer to amino acid derivatives in which the functional groups of amino acids react with other groups to block the activity of the functional groups of amino acids. The functional groups of amino acids include α-amino and carboxyl groups.
In synthetic reactions, the amino groups in primary amines, secondary amines, imidazoles, pyrroles, indole and other aromatic nitrogen heterocycles often need to be protected. Commonly used amino protecting groups can be roughly divided into three categories: alkoxycarbonyl, acyl and alkyl. The most commonly used amino protecting groups are Cbz (Z), Fmoc and Boc.
Carboxyl group is a very common group in organic synthesis. Because it is relatively active, it has an impact on many reactions. Therefore, it is necessary to protect it. Compared with amino-protecting groups, carboxyl-protecting groups have fewer types and generally exist in the form of salts or esters.
Amino acids can be widely used in medicine, food, agriculture, cosmetics, health care products and other fields.
Amino acid nutritional supplements are nutritional products that must be supplemented when human body functions are urgently needed or when digestion and absorption capacity is reduced, nutritional supplements for patients with liver function, and nutritional products used in blood pressure lowering preparations and antiviral preparations.
Amino acids are the raw materials that make up various proteins in the human body. If the amino acid in the body is out of balance, it may cause problems, resulting in a health crisis. Amino acids and their derivatives have certain curative effects in the treatment of respiratory diseases, liver diseases, digestive system diseases, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes and other diseases.
Among natural amino acids, only lysine and cysteine can be used to synthesize anti-drug conjugates (ADCs). Unnatural amino acids can be constructed into recombinant proteins to obtain residue side chains that can react with small molecule drugs.
In the pharmaceutical industry, most drugs are chiral drugs, and all use chiral amino acids and their derivatives (such as chiral amines, chiral amino alcohols) as the core structural units. Chiral amino acids are widely used in medicine, pesticides, fine chemicals, materials and other fields.
Although the affinity of amino acid inhibitors to the target may not be as good as that of antibody drugs, their controllable pharmacokinetic properties and mature research system may overcome the existing problems of antibody drugs and replace monoclonal antibodies or serve as their complementary therapy.