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Content archived on 2024-06-18

Tricyclic Peptides for the Development of Therapeutics

Objective

Peptide macrocycles can bind with high affinity and selectivity to protein targets and are an attractive class of molecules for the development of therapeutics. Recently, a phage display-based strategy was developed that allowed to generate potent bicyclic peptide antagonists (Heinis, C., et al., Nat. Chem. Biol., 2009). While bicyclic peptides with nanomolar affinities to a range of protein targets could be generated, it was more difficult to obtain high-affinity binders to some proteins, particularly to those having flat surfaces and no clefts or cavities. Herein, I propose to develop rigid, tricyclic peptides that should, due to a more defined three-dimensional structure, bind to flat surfaces similar as antibodies. Two formats are envisioned for the synthesis of tricyclic peptides: in the first one, a linear peptide is anchored via four cysteine residues to a small molecule while in the second format, bicyclic peptides will be generated and their two peptide rings are connected via Huisgen cycloaddition reaction to impose an additional conformational constraint. Phage-encoded combinatorial libraries of these peptide folds will be generated and subjected to affinity selections. Tricyclic peptide binding to a variety of biological targets including (a) the well-characterized cancer-associated targets EGFR and HER2, and (b) the more challenging target of the antibiotic vancomycin, the short peptide D-Ala-D-Ala, will be developed.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE
EU contribution
€ 199 317,60
Address
BATIMENT CE 3316 STATION 1
1015 Lausanne
Switzerland
Region
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Région lémanique Vaud
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data