Chimeric Peptides

What's chimeric peptides?

Thanks to the specific tumour microenvironment and the rapid development in the field of modern molecular biology, a number of bioactive peptides that respond to the complex physiological environment of tumours are gradually being revealed. These active peptides bind to tumour overexpressed antibodies in response to tumour-specific secreted proteases, and thus have the ability to modulate and respond to cells at the molecular level. Therefore, they are widely used in several fields. In recent years, due to the high biocompatibility, remarkable bioactivity, diverse functions and ease of modification of these peptide molecules, active peptides have been frequently combined with clinical drugs and diagnostic reagents to construct many chimeric peptides with multiple functionalities.

Application areas of chimeric peptides

These chimeric peptide molecules significantly increase the biological activity of the drug, and improve the biodistribution of the drug, greatly increase the efficiency of treatment and diagnostic accuracy, showing great value for clinical applications.

The chimeric peptides synthesized by modifying active peptides with the function of targeting tumor tissues to these drug small molecules can change the biodistribution of drug molecules and improve the accumulation of drugs in tumor tissues, which can achieve the purpose of reducing the amount of drug delivery and toxic side effects.

Drugs are also combined with tumour-responsive peptides to design chimeric peptides with selective drug release. This strategy enables the drug molecule to be pre-loaded into a vector containing a response peptide, shielding it from cytotoxicity in the circulation. However, once the vector reaches the tumour tissue, the response peptide in the vector responds to specific enzymes in the tumour environment, leading to cleavage of the vector and release of highly active drug molecules for selective treatment.

In addition, as some peptides can bind to tumour-specific antibodies and proteins, chimeric peptides synthesised by modifying contrast agents with different imaging functions onto these peptides can enhance tumour imaging by giving the contrast agent targeting capabilities without compromising the imaging performance, enabling more efficient and accurate tumour tracing.