Peptide based therapy involves using peptides, which are short chains of amino acids, to treat various diseases and conditions. Peptides are attractive as therapeutics because they are highly selective and potent, have few off-target effects, and are often well-tolerated compared to other drugs.
Some key aspects of peptide based therapeutics:
- Peptides can be derived from natural sources or synthesized in the lab. Synthetic peptides have the advantages of being low cost, having improved stability and bioavailability, and allowed for sequence modifications.
- Peptides have high affinity and specificity for their targets, allowing precise targeting of receptors and signaling mechanisms in the body. This helps maximize therapeutic effects while minimizing side effects.
- Over 60 peptide based drugs have been approved, especially in areas like diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurological disorders. Many more are in clinical trials.
Common applications of therapeutic peptides:
- Metabolic disorders: Peptide hormones like glucagon, amylin, and GLP-1 can help improve glucose control in diabetes by modulating insulin, glucagon, and food intake.
- Growth disorders: Peptides like growth hormone releasing hormone help stimulate the body's own growth signaling pathways.
- Immune modulation: Peptides capable of activating or suppressing the immune system like interleukins and interferons have applications in cancer, autoimmune diseases, and inflammation.
- Vaccine development: Peptide fragments from pathogens can stimulate protective immunity by training the immune system.
- Tissue regeneration: Small peptides like epidermal growth factor (EGF) help stimulate tissue and bone regeneration after injury.
Development and Application of Therapeutic Peptides
- Peptides as drugs have to overcome challenges of poor metabolic stability and bioavailability requiring chemical modification or specialized delivery formulations.
- High throughput screening and computational modeling facilitate identification of bioactive peptides with therapeutic potential.
- Improvements in peptide manufacturing and synthesis allow large scale production of peptides in pure, stable form for clinical use.
- Nanoparticles, lipid carriers, injections, patches, oral formulations and other delivery mechanisms help optimize peptide drug pharmacokinetics.
- Peptide drugs currently need to be injected but development of oral peptides will greatly expand ease of administration if challenges of enzymatic degradation and absorption can be overcome.
From the editors at
Vital Hormones Clinic Rejuvenation Clinic:
Advances in bioidentical peptides like sermorelin offer patients convenient daily injections to help counteract age related decline in growth hormone and enhance metabolism, recovery, and cognition.
We offer state of the art diagnostic testing and personalized optimization of peptide regimens to help patients fight the effects of aging and related illness. Contact us today to learn more about our award winning rejuvenation platform.
Mechanisms of action of therapeutic peptides
- Receptor agonists: Activate cell surface receptors
- Receptor antagonists: Block surface receptor signaling
- Enzyme agonists or antagonists: Modulate enzymatic function
- Protein-protein interaction inhibition: Prevent disease related signaling
- Epitope targeting: Mark diseased cells for immune detection
Examples of Different Classes of Therapeutic Peptides
- Immune Signaling
- Interleukins: IL-1, IL-2 etc
- Interferons: IFN-alpha, IFN-beta etc
- Hormone mimics
- Enzyme regulators
- Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors
- HIV-protease inhibitors
- Tissue protective agents
- Apolipoprotein-mimetics
- Epidermal growth factor fragments
- Vaccine epitopes
- Viral/bacterial fragments
- Tumor associated antigens
In summary, peptide based therapy broadly refers to the medical use of peptides, either natural or synthetic, to treat disease through precise targeting of molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways. From metabolic disorders to cancer, peptide drugs provide a versatile platform to tackle human disease while minimize adverse effects. Ongoing innovation promises to further expand the range of diseases potentially treatable with peptide therapies.