Biological insertion of amino acids: it can increase its multi activity by 40 times!

Scientists at the Federal Institute of technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, have recently synthesized an amino acid, which can shape a structure with more activity and enhance its efficacy Experiments show that the activity of the amino acid can be increased by more than 40 times by inserting the amino acid into the polyhydric acid with biological activity With this achievement, a series of new drugs are expected to be developed Relevant papers were published in the journal Nature chemistry At present, the commonly used drugs are mainly made of two kinds of substances, one is the natural multi? Substance, the other is protein, both of which are composed of natural amino acids Although there are many kinds of proteins, there are only 20 kinds of natural amino acids Each kind of amino acid has different structure and chemical properties The combination of different amino acids produces a variety of proteins with different characteristics and functions Until recently, the vast majority of amino acid based drugs were made from amino acids already existing in nature, such as hormones, insulin, antibiotics, cyclosporine and so on But the emergence of a variety of new diseases and the evolution of original bacteria and viruses require scientists to develop new and more effective drugs One way to meet this demand is directed evolution, that is, to simulate the development of nature in the laboratory and develop new proteins A team led by Christian Hines of the Federal Institute of technology in Lausanne has developed a synthetic amino acid with a unique structure that can significantly improve therapeutic versatility and protein efficacy, according to the physicist organization network on September 1 (Beijing time) This synthetic amino acid has a very similar structure to a natural amino acid called cysteine Cysteine contains sulfur groups that are not found in other natural amino acids, which enables it to combine with another cysteine to form a new structure, thus affecting the function of polyhedrin and protein The researchers first designed five cysteine like amino acids and integrated them into two biologically active structures, one to inhibit cancer-related? And the other to block the receptors found in neurons Tests show that the activity of new drugs is nearly 40 times higher than that of traditional drugs "It's very surprising," Heins said Generally, if you mess with natural molecules, you can only make things worse In this case, we find that on the contrary, we get the desired result In the study, we learned that the structure of diversity in the library is the key to achieve good combination and better efficacy With this new amino acid, a highly diverse? Structure can be produced " Bicycles have been thought to replace small molecules or large antibodies used in common drugs to treat diseases This new therapeutic multi? Will play an important role in drug design in the future Heins said that they have made plans to use bicycles? To develop drugs for various diseases, and the next step is to conduct directed evolution experiments with the new amino acid Editor in chief circle The natural structure derived from genetic evolution has a conservative presupposition, and has been verified for a long time From time to time, scientists use bold creativity to divide and combine it again, and try to create a more optimized structure with the original structure as the guide This time, Swiss scientists have applied such imagination to the basic unit of protein, the material basis of life The newly synthesized amino acids can increase the activity intensity, improve the physical and chemical properties and promote the efficacy of drugs It remains to be seen whether the natural molecules that have been "stirred" can play an important role in drug design in the future (reporter Wang Xiaolong)