News and Research Archive
Docking Bias
Reflecting recent work in the Keating lab
Deep-learning structure predictors now place many peptides correctly onto their protein partners, and this recent work from Lindsey Guan and Amy Keating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published in Protein Science, explains...
Dilp Divergence
Reflecting recent work in the Bland lab
Insulin-like peptides orchestrate how animals apportion nutrients between storage and growth, yet distinct ligands may encode different cues even when signaling through a single receptor. In this study, researchers in Michelle Bland's Group at the University of Virginia, published in PNAS...
Aquaporin Bridge
Reflecting recent work in the Wang lab
Researchers from the Wang Group at the School of Life Sciences, Shandong University, China, report in PNAS a mechanistic bridge between two pillars of arthropod antibacterial defense. Their study shows...
Alkyne Grasp
Reflecting recent work in the Fujishiro lab
ATP-grasp ligases offer a powerful route to diversify peptide structures, and BesA stands out for its ability to incorporate terminal alkyne groups into dipeptides with high specificity. By dissecting BesA’s catalytic mechanism and engineering substrate tolerance...
Peptide Portals
Reflecting recent work in the Otto lab
For decades, antimicrobial peptides, AMPs, have stood at the crossroads between innate immunity and drug discovery, yet their molecular diversity remains incompletely explored. Dickey, Otto, and collaborators...
Glycan–Metal Synergy
Reflecting recent work in the Koksch lab
Hydrogels, highly hydrated polymer networks, underpin both natural barriers such as mucus and numerous biomedical applications. Mucins, the glycoprotein constituents of mucus, achieve their viscoelasticity through peptide backbones enriched in proline, threonine...
Phosphine Rebridging
Reflecting recent work in the Hackenberger lab
Published in Angewandte Chemie International Editition, researchers from the Hackenberger Lab at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, present a powerful new class of phosphine oxide–based reagents for chemoselective protein modification...
Helical Hydrazides
Reflecting recent work in the Gellman lab
Seeking to understand the relative kinetic benefits of reactive unit connection and preorganization, researchers from the Gellman Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Madison investigated α/β-peptide foldamers containing a preorganized hydrazide diad...
Ephemeral Pores
Reflecting recent work in the Pastor lab
In a PNAS study, researchers from the Pastor group at the National Institutes of Health, NIH, and the Cotten group at Oregon State University present a combined experimental/simulation framework using the AMP piscidin-1...
Serine Switch
Reflecting recent work in the Diao lab
Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, work by first author Zhenyan Guo in the Diao Lab at the New York University, delivers a chemoselective solution to a long-standing gap: late-stage modification of native serine via carbon–carbon...
Mitochondrial Click
Reflecting recent work in the Wennemers lab
In work published in ACS Chemical Biology, Adeline Schmitt, under the guidance of Helma Wennemers at ETH Zürich, investigated rigid polyproline II, PPII, helical scaffolds containing guanidinium-proline, Gup, residues patterned with hydrophobic groups to tune amphipathicity and uptake...
Copper Clicks
Reflecting recent work in the Metanis lab
In a collaborative work between the Metanis and Shimon labs at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Wang group at the Xiamen University in China, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a copper-mediated approach is introduced...
Photoregulated Catalysis
Reflecting recent work in the Bandyopadhyay lab
Precise external regulation of enzymatic activity remains a central goal in chemical biology, with wide-ranging implications for biotechnology, diagnostics, and medicine. Natural proteases govern countless biological processes, yet their lack of...
Covalent Peptide Libraries
Reflecting recent work in the Bode lab
Covalent inhibitors provide potent and durable target engagement, with approved drugs such as ibrutinib and osimertinib validating the approach. These compounds exploit electrophilic warheads to irreversibly or reversibly engage nucleophilic residues, most often...
Spike Peptide Amyloids
Reflecting recent work in the Legleiter lab
SARS-CoV-2 spike protein fragments are known to form amyloid fibrils, but far less is understood about the prefibrillar states that emerge along the way, or how those intermediates interact with lipid membranes in ways that could drive toxicity. In a study published in Biochemistry, researchers in the Legleiter lab...
Engineered Lasso Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Burk lab
A major barrier to durable responses with PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors is the activation of immunosuppressive TGF-β within the tumor microenvironment. This immunosuppression is driven in large part by the RGD-binding integrins αvβ6 and αvβ8, which are upregulated across many solid tumors. Direct systemic blockade of TGF-β has proven toxic...
Peptide Aggregation Blockers
Reflecting recent work in the Wright lab
The misfolding and aggregation of transthyretin, TTR, a serum protein responsible for transporting thyroxine and retinol binding protein, underlies a class of amyloid diseases that include TTR cardiomyopathy and polyneuropathy. In these disorders, the native tetrameric structure of TTR becomes destabilized...
HDAC-Mediated Lactylation
Reflecting recent work in the Goldberg lab
Lysine lactylation, Kla, has emerged as a post-translational modification, PTM, directly linking glycolytic metabolism to protein regulation. While earlier models invoked lactyl-CoA–dependent transfer or non-enzymatic reactions via lactoylglutathione, the enzymatic basis of Kla remained uncertain...
Targeted Conjugates
Reflecting recent work in the Zeglis lab
For two decades, immunoconjugates have been a mainstay of targeted oncology, from antibody–drug conjugates to radioimmunotherapy probes. The clinical challenge has never been the underlying concept, but rather the chemistry of conjugation. Conventional strategies, stochastic coupling...
Ultrafast Peptide Cyclization
Reflecting recent work in the Sun lab
Cyclic peptides occupy a privileged niche in chemical biology. Their constrained conformations reduce entropic penalties upon binding, impart proteolytic stability, and frequently enable access to protein–protein interaction surfaces that are inaccessible to small molecules...
Coagulation Trigger
Reflecting recent work in the Ruvo lab
Hemostasis begins with a handshake. When vascular damage exposes tissue factor, TF, to the bloodstream, factor VII, FVII, latches on, instantly engaging the extrinsic pathway and accelerating thrombin generation. Because TF is sequestered...
Azapeptoid Collagen
Reflecting recent work in the Del Valle lab
Collagen’s mechanical grace comes from a deceptively simple code: repeating Gly-Xaa-Yaa triplets that assemble into three left-handed PPII chains winding into a right-handed triple helix. Nature’s favorites at Xaa and Yaa—proline...
Cysteine Umpolung
Reflecting recent work in the Wang lab
A longstanding challenge in peptide chemistry has been the restricted reactivity of canonical amino acids, which limits late-stage functionalization strategies. Most side chains are inherently nucleophilic, and thus nearly all peptide modification...
Rewiring the Protein Backbone
Reflecting recent work in the Schepartz lab
Backbone editing offers a powerful way to expand protein function: by introducing β, γ, or δ linkages, researchers can strengthen folds against proteolysis, reshape ligand dynamics, and unlock new routes to modulate protein–protein interactions…
Barrier Crossing
Reflecting recent work in the Pires lab
Tuberculosis, TB, remains one of the most pressing global health threats, with more than ten million cases reported in 2022. Once thought to be in gradual decline, TB incidence has reversed course, fueled by the rise of multidrug-resistant, MDR, and extensively drug-resistant, XDR, strains. The causative...
Blocking Metastasis
Reflecting recent work in the Kennedy lab
Metastasis remains the leading cause of cancer mortality, and one driver of this process is the actin cytoskeleton remodeling mediated by WASF3, a protein strongly upregulated in aggressive tumor types...
Degrading Light
Reflecting recent work in the Lou lab
Targeted protein degradation has rapidly matured into a transformative drug discovery approach, offering ways to dismantle proteins once deemed undruggable. While classical proteolysis-targeting chimeras, PROTACs, exploit the ubiquitin–proteasome system...
Stapled Sheets
Reflecting recent work in the Del Valle lab
The stabilization of β-sheet structures has long been a challenge in peptide design, despite their central role in mediating protein–protein interactions, PPIs. While side-chain stapling is well-established for constraining α-helical, polyproline II, and loop conformations...
Peptide Galanin Binding
Reflecting recent work in the Patnaik lab
In a landmark study, published in ACS Chemical Biology, researchers from the Samarjit Patnaik group at the National Institutes of Health, report the development of a live-cell NanoBRET, Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer, assay...
Protein Phosphorylation
Reflecting recent work in the Köhn lab
Professor Maja Köhn took the stage at the 29th American Peptide Symposium in San Diego, her presentation, "Targeting Phosphatases with Peptides and Phosphomimetics," offered a captivating look into one of the most challenging frontiers in molecular medicine...
Proline Scanning
Reflecting recent work in the Wu lab
Disulfide-rich peptides, DRPs, are renowned for their stability and therapeutic promise, yet their natural structures offer limited flexibility for evolution or functional adaptation. In an innovative and collaborative study, researchers...
Conformational Equilibrium
Reflecting recent work in the Serianni lab
The conformational behavior of alanine dipeptide, Ac-L-Ala-NHMe, 1, has long made it a model compound in molecular simulation studies. However, despite numerous investigations using molecular dynamics, MD, and quantum mechanical, QM, calculations, a rigorous...
Peptide Anti Obesity 2.0
Reflecting recent work in the David lab
Obesity is a leading contributor to global disease burden and a primary risk factor for type 2 diabetes, yet current treatments often lack specificity and long-term efficacy. In a groundbreaking collaborative study, published...
Delivery of Peptide-LYTAC
Reflecting recent work in the Luan lab
While immune checkpoint blockade, ICB, therapies have transformed cancer immunotherapy, tumors such as melanoma frequently exploit the CD47-SIRPα axis to evade macrophage-mediated clearance. Antibody-based CD47 blockade, though...
Shaping Peptide Assemblies
Reflecting recent work in the Jiang lab
Peptides capable of folding into defined secondary structures serve as promising modular building blocks for supramolecular materials. However, conventional approaches to peptide-based self-assembly are often constrained by environmental...
Intracellular Targeting
Reflecting recent work in the Futaki lab
The delivery of biomacromolecules directly into the cytosol remains a central challenge in therapeutic peptide science. Coacervate-based systems offer a promising platform, yet many are hampered by instability in physiological conditions and diminished performance...
Rational Design
Reflecting recent work in the Gellman lab
The rational construction of stable hetero-oligomeric protein complexes with defined subunit composition is a central challenge in molecular design. In this study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers in the Gellman Lab...
Macrocyclic Peptide Antibiotics
Reflecting recent work in the van der Donk lab
Ribosomally synthesized and posttranslationally modified peptides, RiPPs, represent one of the most structurally diverse classes of natural products, yet many RiPP families remain biosynthetically uncharacterized...
Quorum Sensing Redux
Reflecting recent work in the Tal-Gan lab
Streptococcus constellatus, a member of the Streptococcus anginosus group, SAG, is an opportunistic pathogen commonly found in the human oral and gastrointestinal microbiota. While often commensal, it has increasingly been implicated in severe purulent infections, particularly in immunocompromised individuals. Despite its emerging clinical relevance...
Oxidative Peptide Coupling
Reflecting recent work in the Proulx lab
This study demonstrates that a key determinant of this reactivity is the choice of solvent. By shifting from aqueous buffer to a mixed organic solvent system, MeOH/DCE, the authors observed a pronounced shift in the oxidation pathway, favoring productive...
Potent Antifungal Lipopeptide
Reflecting recent work in the Süssmuth lab
In this study, researchers from the Süssmuth group at the Technische Universität Berlin, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, elucidated the structure of AFC-BC11 as an N-acyl tetrapeptide with a distinctive architecture. The molecule is...
Efficient siRNA Delivery
Reflecting recent work in the Anders lab
In this collaborative study, published in Bioconjugate Chemistry by researchers from the Dahlén group at Astra-Zeneca, Gothenburg, Sweden, and the Andaloussi team at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, the authors present...
Grafted Coiled Coils
Reflecting recent work in the Andrew J. lab
Protein–protein interactions, PPIs, are fundamental to cellular regulation, yet targeting them therapeutically remains challenging due to their extensive, shallow interfaces. Peptides offer an attractive solution, providing structural fidelity...
Quorum Sensing
Reflecting recent work in the Tal-Gan lab
Streptococcus cristatus, a commensal member of the oral microbiota and recently reclassified from Streptococcus oligofermentans, has emerged as a promising candidate in the pursuit of biotherapeutics targeting oral pathogens. A comprehensive...
Molecular Scaffolds
Reflecting recent work in the Craik lab
This comprehensive review from the labs of David Craik and Lara Malins at Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science, at the University of Queensland, published in Biochemistry, highlights the powerful...
From Hydrogel to Crystal
Reflecting recent work in the Schneider lab
Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers in the lab of Dr. Joel P. Schneider at NIH, have unveiled a groundbreaking molecular design strategy that shifts gel-forming peptides into the crystalline state...
Ubiquitin Azapeptide Esters
Reflecting recent work in the Liu lab
Published as an ASAP article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers from the Wenshe Liu Lab at Texas A&M, currenly our "Lab of the Month," present the development...
Versatile Precursors
Reflecting recent work in the Mitchell lab
Cyclopropane-containing amino acids, prized for their conformational rigidity and stability, are of increasing interest in therapeutic peptide development and antimicrobial drug discovery. A recent study from Nicholas Mitchell’s group at the University of Nottingham...
Sequence Architecture
Reflecting recent work in the Woolfson lab
The Woolfson Lab continues to break new ground in de novo protein design with the successful creation of mixed-charge A3B3 heterohexameric α-helical barrels, αHBs, assembled from distinct acidic, A, and basic, B, peptide chains. Drawing on...
Dynamic Ion Channels
Reflecting recent work in the Niitsu lab
Membrane-spanning peptides that form ion-conductive channels remain a challenging frontier in de novo protein design. While strides have been made in creating water-soluble peptide assemblies, translating that precision to transmembrane systems...
Antimicrobial Peptide
Reflecting recent work in the D'Amelio lab
As antibiotic resistance surges worldwide, the search for effective new therapeutics has led scientists to a surprising source: the venom of Bungarus fasciatus, the banded krait. From this venom, researchers have isolated Cathelicidin-BF...
Protein Design
Reflecting recent work in the Tezcan lab
Isopeptide bonds, IPBs, — covalent linkages between the side chains of lysine and asparagine/glutamine or aspartate/glutamate — are remarkable for their chemical resilience and structural significance...
Electrophilic Warheads
Reflecting recent work in the lab
Understanding how proteins interact with biological metabolites is crucial for deciphering biological processes and advancing therapeutic strategies. This study focuses on a specific class of metabolites—α,β-unsaturated carbonyls, particularly acrolein-derived...
Vesicle Inversion
Reflecting recent work in the Deming lab
Self-assembled polymeric vesicles that respond to biologically relevant stimuli have significant potential in drug delivery and synthetic biology. While many stimuli-responsive assemblies disassemble upon activation, invertible vesicles...
Synthesis Tag
Reflecting recent work in the Hartrampf lab
Solid-phase peptide synthesis, SPPS, and native chemical ligation, NCL, are powerful methods for obtaining peptides and proteins that are otherwise inaccessible...
Vancomycin–Teixobactin
Reflecting recent work in the Nowick lab
Vancomycin, a cornerstone antibiotic for Gram-positive infections, faces diminishing efficacy due to the emergence of vancomycin-resistant Enterococci, VRE, and vancomycin-resistant...
Super-Res Microscopy
Reflecting recent work in the Guha lab
Researchers in the Samit Guha Group at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, published in Bioconjugate Chemistry, report a groundbreaking approach to cancer imaging...
Selective Cyclization
Reflecting recent work in the Liu lab
To address the limitations of current methods for peptide macrocyclization, which often rely on nonspecific small-molecule linkers...
Metallo-Azapeptides
Reflecting recent work in the Proulx lab
Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers in the Proulx group at the North Carolina State University at Raleigh, present the first approach to controlled metal chelation of peptide backbones...
Graspetides
Reflecting recent work in the Ding lab
Published in ACS Chemical Biology, researchers in the Ding Group at the University of Florida, reconstructed prunipeptin biosynthesis from Streptomyces coelicolor...
Biomolecular Condensates
Reflecting recent work in the Baiz lab
Biomolecular condensates provide a mechanism for compartmentalization of biomolecules in eukaryotic cells. These liquid-like condensates are formed via liquid–liquid phase separation
Cyclodepsipeptides
Reflecting recent work in the Del Valle lab
Members of the Del Valle Group at the University of Notre Dame, in collaboration with the Ebright Group at Rutgers, report in Organic letters, the synthesis of the antimicrobial cyclodepsipeptides...
Anorexia and Weight Loss
Reflecting recent work in the Mapp lab
The melanocortin-3 receptor, MC3R, is a G-protein coupled receptor that regulates appetite and is a potential therapeutic target for anorexia and weight loss treatments...
Macrocyclic Peptide Ligands
Reflecting recent work in the Suga lab
Prenylation of peptides is widely observed in the secondary metabolites of diverse organisms, granting peptides unique chemical properties distinct from proteinogenic amino acids. Discovery of...
Highly Active & Stable Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Suga lab
Nonproteinogenic amino acids, including D-α-, β-, and γ-amino acids, present in bioactive peptides play pivotal roles in their biochemical activities and proteolytic stabilities...
Antimicrobial Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Malmsten lab
Published in Advanced Functional Materials, work by members of the Martin Malmsten group at the University of Lund, Sweden, explores the coating of photocatalytic nanoparticles with antimicrobial peptides...
"PickaPep" Application
Reflecting recent work in the Steuer lab
Published in Peptide Science, the Steuer Group at ETH, Zūrich, presents "PICKAPEP," an application developed for Mac and Windows, enabling the virtual construction...
Infrared Scattering
Reflecting recent work in the Voigt lab
Natural melanin polymers, biosynthesized from free tyrosine, assemble into microstructures that interact with light, producing a wide range of photonic properties. These structures...
Polarized Luminescence
Reflecting recent work in the Bhattacharya lab
Circularly polarized luminescence, CPL, is gaining interest across various disciplines, including materials science, pharmaceuticals, and sensing technologies. Organic molecules...
Self-Healable Composites
Reflecting recent work in the Pal lab
Crystalline materials exhibiting non-centrosymmetry and possessing substantial surface dipole moments play a critical role in piezoelectricity. Designing biocompatible self-assembled materials...
Solid-Phase Synthesis
Reflecting recent work in the Kodadek lab
Many disease-causing proteins lack deep, readily ligandable pockets. Macrocyclic peptides and peptidomimetic compounds are one class of molecules that have shown promise in engaging these...
Bicyclic Helical Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Grossmann lab
The inhibition of intracellular protein-protein interactions is challenging, in particular, when involved interfaces lack pronounced cavities. The transcriptional co-activator protein...
Antihapten Antibodies
Reflecting recent work in the Compton lab
Eliciting an antihapten antibody response to vaccination typically requires the use of constructs where multiple copies of the hapten are covalently attached to a larger carrier molecule...
Defining the Limits
Reflecting recent work in the Jongkees lab
Messenger RNA, mRNA, display is being increasingly adopted for peptide drug candidate discovery. While many conditions have been reported for the affinity enrichment step and in some cases...
Macrocyclic Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Kodadek lab
Macrocyclic peptides, MPs, are a class of compounds that have been shown to be particularly well suited for engaging difficult protein targets. However, their utility...
Peptide Receptors
Reflecting recent work in the Checco lab
Peptide–receptor interactions play critical roles in a wide variety of physiological processes. Methods to link bioactive peptides covalently to unmodified receptors...
Triceptide Biocatalysts
Reflecting recent work in the Morinaka lab
Triceptides are a class of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides defined by an aromatic C(sp2) to Cβ(sp3) bond...
Ephrin Receptors
Reflecting recent work in the Sawyer lab
Ephrin, Eph, receptors are the largest family of receptor tyrosine kinases. Interactions between Eph receptors and their membrane-bound ephrin protein ligands are...
Custom Click Biochemistry
Reflecting recent work in the Yang lab
The development of oligomeric glucagon-like peptide-1, GLP-1, and GLP-1-containing coagonists holds promise for enhancing the therapeutic potential of the GLP-1-based drugs...
CGRP-Responsive Receptor
Reflecting recent work in the Sexton lab
Inhibition of calcitonin gene-related peptide, CGRP, or its cognate CGRP receptor, CGRPR, has arisen as a major breakthrough in the treatment...
Peptide Imidazolones
Reflecting recent work in the VanVeller lab
Published in JACS, researchers in the VanVeller Group at Iowa State University, present a tandem amidine installation and cyclization with an...
Peptide Gels
Reflecting recent work in the Schneider lab
Researchers in the Schneider lab, published in Angewandte Chemie, Intl. Ed., discuss how peptide nucleic acids, PNAs, are employed in the design...
Novel Substrate Prediction
Reflecting recent work in the Parker lab
The TAM family of receptor tyrosine kinases is implicated in multiple distinct oncogenic signaling pathways. However, to date, there are no...
Coiled Coils
Reflecting recent work in the Price lab
Coiled coils are one of most common protein quaternary structures and represent the best understood relationship between amino acid sequence and protein...
Monoclonal Antibodies
Reflecting recent work in the Nowick lab
Monoclonal antibodies, mAbs, that target the β-amyloid peptide, Aβ, are important Alzheimer's disease research tools and are now being...
Novel, Rational Drug Design
Reflecting recent work in the Deber lab
As an alternative approach to conventional antibiotics, members of the Charles Deber laboratory, published in Peptide Science, explore a novel...
Lasso Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Swanson lab
Lasso peptides make up a class of natural products characterized by a threaded structure. Given their small size and stability, chemical synthesis would offer tremendous potential...
Alzheimer’s Amyloid-β
Reflecting recent work in the Raskatov lab
Amyloid aggregation is a key feature of Alzheimer's disease, AD, and a primary target for past and present therapeutic efforts. Recent research is making it increasingly clear...
C–H Radiocyanation
Reflecting recent work in the Mapp and Sanford labs
In a collaborative work, published in Chemical Science, between the Mapp and Sanford groups, and researchers at the Department of Radiology, all at the University of Michigan, authors describe...
α-Helical Peptides
Reflecting recent work from FOG Pharmaceuticals
Molecules that induce novel interactions between proteins hold great promise for the study of biological systems and the development of therapeutics, but their discovery...
Mechanistic Studies of CyClick Chemistry
Reflecting recent work in the Raj and Houk labs
Macrocyclic peptides have become increasingly important in the pharmaceutical industry. In collaborative work between the groups of Kendall N. Houk and Monika Raj, published in...
Cytosolic Delivery of Functional Cargoes
Reflecting recent work in the Hackenberger lab
In research published in JACS, members of the Hackenberger Group, describe a powerful, simple, and highly effective strategy for the intracellular delivery...
Tyrosine Phosphorylation
Reflecting recent work in the Hecht lab
The family of NF-κB transcriptional activators controls the expression of many genes, including those involved in cell survival and development. The family consists of...
Pargamicin A
Reflecting recent work in the Del Valle lab
Researchers in the Del Valle Group, published in Organic Letters, report the total synthesis and configurational assignment of pargamicin A, a highly oxidized nonribosomal peptide...
Stereoselectivity
Reflecting recent work in the Wennemers lab
In this article we show that stereoselective peptide catalysis is feasible in complex environments, including cell lysates...
Anticancer Protein
Reflecting recent work in the Bagheri lab
Cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality in the world. Unfortunately, the present anticancer chemotherapeutics display high cytotoxicity...
Ribosomal synthesis
Reflecting recent work in the Suga lab
Aromatic cyclic β2,3-amino acids (cβAAs), such as 2-aminobenzoic acid and 3-aminothiophene-2-carboxylic acid, are building blocks that can induce unique folding...
PKC Disruptors
Reflecting recent work in the Kennedy lab
Protein Kinase C (PKC) is a member of the AGC subfamily of kinases and regulates a wide array of signaling pathways and physiological processes...
Protease Inhibitors
Reflecting recent work in the Petersson lab
Aberrant levels of cathepsin L (Cts L), a ubiquitously expressed endosomal cysteine protease, have been implicated in many diseases such as cancer and diabetes...
Antibacterial Hydrogels
Reflecting recent work in the Schneider lab
Herein, it is demonstrated that a peptide derived from mussel foot protein-5, a key protein in mussel adhesion, displays antibacterial properties, a yet unreported...
Rippled β-Sheet Motif
Reflecting recent work in the lab
In this conspectus, the authors give an overview of the early history of the rippled β-sheet and provide a detailed structural description/definition of this motif...
Ion Channels
Reflecting recent work in the Woolfson lab
The design of peptides that assemble in membranes to form functional ion channels is challenging. Specifically, hydrophobic interactions must be...
Production Technology
Reflecting recent work in the Schwarz lab
The production of peptides as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) by recombinant technologies is of emerging interest. A reliable production platform, however...
Protein Synthesis
Reflecting recent work in the Premdjee lab
Chemical protein synthesis is a powerful avenue for accessing homogeneously modified proteins, but access to large targets has proved challenging...
Peptide-Based Vaccines
Reflecting recent work in the Lai lab
In this Review, the authors discuss peptide-based vaccines and their potential in three therapeutic areas: infectious disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer...
Stapled Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Han lab
Diabetes is characterized by pancreas dysfunction and is commonly associated with obesity. Hypoglycemic agents capable of improving β-cell function...
Endosomal Escape
Reflecting recent work in the Futaki lab
Endocytic pathways are practical routes for the intracellular delivery of biomacromolecules. Along with this, effective strategies for endosomal cargo release...
Oxime Ligation
Reflecting recent work in the Burke lab
The current review will focus on the authors’ use of peptide ligation to optimize PPI antagonists directed against several targets...
Cyclic Peptide Ligands
Reflecting recent work in the Suga lab
Herein is identified three cyclic peptide ligands of K-Ras(G12D) using an integrated in vitro translation−mRNA display selection platform...
Peptidomimetic Uptake
Reflecting recent work in the Arora lab
Researchers in the Arora Lab observed that the cellular uptake of peptides is critically determined by the cell line-specifically, they noted that peptides show better uptake...
Membrane-Lytic Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Schneider lab
Herein is described the use of peptide backbone N-methylation as a new strategy to transform membrane-lytic peptides (MLPs) into cytocompatible intracellular delivery vehicles...
Frog-skin Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Craik lab
In this study, the researchers investigated naturally occurring peptides derived from frog skin secretions for selectivity and activity toward melanocortin receptors...
Coronavirus Inhibitors
Reflecting recent work in the Hoffman lab
The novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 that emerged in 2019 is caused by the virus SARS CoV-2 and named for its close genetic similarity to SARS CoV-1...
Targeting Malaria
Reflecting recent work in the Kennedy lab
Herein is a review of ongoing research aimed at developing constrained peptides targeting protein-protein interactions pertinent to malaria pathogenesis.
Stapled Peptide
Reflecting recent work in the Garner lab
Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) has emerged as a promising cancer therapeutic target due to its role in the initiation of cap-dependent translation...
Peptide Hydrogels
Reflecting recent work in the Schneider lab
Herein, a noninteracting multiphase molecular assembly approach is developed to crystallize tofacitinib, a potent JAK1/3 inhibitor, within a shearthinning self-assembled fibrillar peptide hydrogel network...
Modified Amino Acids
Reflecting recent work in the Wang lab
Herein, Wang et al. present a photoredox-catalyzed asymmetric method for the preparation of enantiopure β-thiolated/selenolated amino acids using a simple chiral auxiliary...
Mapping SARS-CoV-2
Reflecting recent work in the Ng lab
Given the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, identification of immunogenic targets against the coronavirus spike glycoprotein will provide crucial advances towards the development of diagnostic tools...
Micelle-assisted Reactions
Reflecting recent work in the Devaraj lab
This publication shows that micelle-assisted reaction can facilitate native chemical ligations between a peptide-thioester and a Cys-peptide modified by a lipid-like moiety...
Chemical Protein Synthesis
Reflecting recent work in the Mandal lab
Herein is reported an operationally simple method to facilitate chemical protein synthesis by fully convergent and one-pot native chemical ligations...
Fluorescent Peptide
Reflecting recent work in the Nowick lab
Teixobactin is a nonribosomal antibiotic peptide that inhibits the biosynthesis of peptidoglycan and teichoic acid, however, teixobactin’s cellular site of action is unknown...
Constrained Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Waldmann lab
Guéret and colleagues describe a versatile method for inserting chiral motifs between the ends of omega loops. Peptides are synthesized using traditional SPPS...
C1B1 Inhibition
Reflecting recent work in the Pearce lab
In this recent publication, Puhl et al. have employed random peptide phage display to screen and select peptides that bind to the calcium and integrin binding protein 1 (CIB1)...
Aqueous SPPS
Reflecting recent work in the Kolmar lab
The growing interest in synthetic peptides has prompted the development of viable methods for their sustainable production. Currently, large amounts of toxic solvents are required for peptide assembly...
Improved Thiol Protection
Reflecting recent work in the Distefano lab
Photoremovable caging groups are useful for biological applications because the deprotection process can be initiated by illumination with light without the necessity of adding additional reagents...
Peptide Self Assembly
Reflecting recent work in the Montenegro lab
Despite recent developments in two-dimensional self-assembly, most supramolecular 2D materials are assembled by tedious methodologies, with complex surface chemistry and small sizes...
Nanosheet Fabrication
Reflecting recent work in the Conticello lab
Engineering free-standing 2D nanomaterials with compositional, spatial, and functional control across size regimes from the nano- to mesoscale represents a significant challenge....
Hydrophobic Moieties
Reflecting recent work in the Wennemers lab
Trans amide bonds and fast cis–trans isomerization of Xaa-Pro bonds are crucial for the stability and folding rate of collagen, the most abundant protein in mammals...
Ghost Peptides
Reflecting recent work in the Raines lab
A major hurdle in chemical biology is the delivery of native proteins into the cytosol of mammalian cells. Published in ACS Chemical Biology, and presented...
Octreotide Analogs
Reflecting recent work in the Papini lab
Somatostatin, SS, is a cyclic tetradecapeptide able to inhibit the release of growth hormone, GH, mainly through the binding to two G‐protein coupled...
Roads to Rome
Reflecting recent work in the Schmidt lab
Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides, RiPPs, are ubiquitous natural products. Bioactive RiPPs are produced from a precursor...























































































