Objective: Cancer has risen as the main cause of diseases with the highest rate of mortality in the world. Drugs used in cancer, usually demonstrate side effects on normal tissues. On the other hand, anticancer small peptides, effective on target tissues, should be safe on healthy organs, as being naturally originated compounds. In addition, they may have good pharmacokinetic properties. carnos...

Centruroides tecomanus is a Mexican scorpion endemic of the State of Colima, that causes human fatalities. This communication describes a proteome analysis obtained from milked venom and a transcriptome analysis from a cDNA library constructed from two pairs of venom glands of this scorpion. High perfomance liquid chromatography separation of soluble venom produced 80 fractions, from which at l...

The random non-standard peptide integrated discovery (RaPID) system has proven to be a powerful approach to discover de novo natural product-like macrocyclic peptides that inhibit protein functions. We have recently reported three macrocyclic peptides that bind to Pyrococcus furiosus multidrug and toxic compound extrusion (PfMATE) transporter and inhibit the transport function. Moreover, these ...

The kidney plays an important role in the metabolism of proteins and peptides. Current evidence indicates that only the proximal tubule possesses the mechanisms for absorption, transport and/or degradation of these substances. Large proteins and polypeptide molecules filtered by the glomerulus, are absorbed from proximal tubular fluid by luminal endocytosis into apical vacuoles which fuse with ...

The neurotoxins isolated from cone shell venoms are a diverse group of small, disulfiderich peptides. Most of the active peptides isolated to date have been shown to specifically target various components of neural transmission, and have generally demonstrated high specificities for ion channel and receptor types and subtypes. The specificity of conotoxins is one of the attributes that make the...

1. Cathelicidins are small cationic antimicrobial peptides. Cathelicidin LL-37 and its fragments inhibit HIV replication. Whether there is any inhibitory effect on enzymes essential to the HIV life cycle is not known. Therefore, human cathelicidin LL-37 and its fragments were investigated for their ability to inhibit HIV reverse transcriptase, protease, and integrase. 2. Human cathelicidin LL-3...

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by an accumulation of toxic amyloid beta- (Aβ-)peptides in the brain causing progressive neuronal death. Aβ-peptides are produced by aspartyl proteinase-mediated cleavage of the larger amyloid precursor protein (APP). In contrast to this detrimental "amyloidogenic" form of proteolysis, a range of zinc metalloproteinases can proc...

Dermcidin (DCD) is a recently described antimicrobial peptide, which is constitutively expressed in eccrine sweat glands and transported via sweat to the epidermal surface. By postsecretory proteolytic processing in sweat the dermcidin protein gives rise to several truncated DCD peptides which differ in length and net charge. In order to understand the mechanism of antimicrobial activity, we an...

Abstract Background Hepatoma is a serious public health concern. New attempts are urgently needed to solve this problem. Melittin, host defense peptide derived from the venom of honeybees, has noteworthy hemolysis and non-specific cytotoxicity in clinical applications. Here, self-assembly melittin vitamin E-succinic acid-(glutamate) 12 (VG) was fabricated via noncovalent ?-stacking hydrogen bon...