Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Peptide therapeutics are peptides or polypeptides (oligomers or short polymers of amino acids) which are used to for the treatment of diseases.Naturally occurring peptides may serve as hormones, growth factors, neurotransmitters, ion channel ligands, and anti-infectives; peptide therapeutics mimic such functions.
Bacitracin is a polypeptide antibiotic derived from a bacterium, Bacillus subtilis, and acts against bacteria through the inhibition of cell wall synthesis. [6] It does this by inhibiting the removal of phosphate from lipid compounds, thus deactivating its function to transport peptidoglycan; the main component of bacterial cell membranes, to the microbial cell wall.
More specifically, polypeptides like collagen and silk, are biocompatible materials that are being used in ground-breaking research, as these are inexpensive and easily attainable materials. Gelatin polymer is often used on dressing wounds where it acts as an adhesive.
In addition to containing small peptides, the resulting material includes fats, metals, salts, vitamins, and many other biological compounds. Peptones are used in nutrient media for growing bacteria and fungi. [16] Peptide fragments refer to fragments of proteins that are used to identify or quantify the source protein. [17]
A protein contains at least one long polypeptide. Short polypeptides, containing less than 20–30 residues, are rarely considered to be proteins and are commonly called peptides. The individual amino acid residues are bonded together by peptide bonds and adjacent amino acid residues.
Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are synthetic biopolymers with potential applications in the fields of cancer therapy, tissue scaffolding, metal recovery, and protein purification. For cancer therapy, the addition of functional groups to ELPs can enable them to conjugate with cytotoxic drugs. [ 1 ]
Antimicrobial peptides have been used as therapeutic agents; their use is generally limited to intravenous administration or topical applications due to their short half-lives. As of January 2018 the following antimicrobial peptides were in clinical use: [29] Bacitracin for pneumonia, topical; Boceprevir, Hepatitis C (oral, cyclic peptide)
Vibrational spectroscopy can also be used to characterize the conformation of peptides, polypeptides, and proteins. [29] Two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy has become a valuable method to investigate the structures of flexible peptides and proteins that cannot be studied with other methods.