Breakthrough in peptide antioxidant system in China

Recently, the research team led by Lai Ren, a researcher of Kunming Institute of zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Lin Donghai, a researcher of Shanghai Institute of medicine, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have made new progress in the research of peptide antioxidant system This is the progress made after the research team led by Lai Ren in 2009 proposed the peptide antioxidant system encoded by gene and named "the third antioxidant system" The results show that the reduced cysteine in the antioxidant peptide sequence plays a key role in the rapid scavenging of free radicals According to Liu Cunbao, Ph.D student of lairen research team, two kinds of skin antioxidant systems have been found before, one is gene encoded macromolecular antioxidant enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), the other is small molecular organic compounds, such as vitamins However, how amphibians keep their naked skin free from free radicals in the oxygen rich air environment in the sun is a very important and interesting question, no matter from the evolutionary point of view or the researchers interested in animal skin biology However, the research on peptide system of this protective mechanism needs to be improved On this basis, the research team conducted in-depth research on the scavenging efficiency, speed and mechanism of free radicals from the peptide antioxidant system They found a new small antioxidant peptide called antioxidin-RL from the skin of a large green frog, which provides evidence for the possible widespread presence of antioxidant peptide system in amphibian skin Antioxidin RL has a powerful free radical scavenging ability, which can scavenge 80% of a kind of free radical named ABTS in 2 seconds It is about 2-4 times faster than the antioxidants (such as 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol and vitamin E) which are widely used in commerce It shows that the antioxidant peptide system represented by antioxidin may play a role in maintaining the redox reaction balance of amphibian skin Play an important role At the same time, amino acid mutation, NMR and a series of other biochemical tests show that the cysteine residue at the tenth position in the peptide plays an important role in its ability to rapidly scavenge free radicals, and the tyrosine in the peptide plays a role in the process of binding free radicals At present, the research results are published in the Journal of free radical biology & Medicine (2010), and relevant achievements have applied for the invention patent "antioxidin-rl and its gene and application" The invention is of great significance for biomedical and cosmetic research and development.