Flu is a contagious respiratory disease caused by influenza virus infection. This seasonal epidemic has long been a public concern and a research topic for scientists. Flu vaccines, vaccines raised against the most common influenza virus in the current season predicted by the researchers, are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help prevent influenza virus infection. However, only a few small molecule drugs are currently available as influenza therapeutics. Recently, a paper published in Science suggested a different approach in designing therapeutics against influenza virus.
Influenza virus contains two major surface proteins: neuraminidase and hemagglutinin (HA). By analyzing the vulnerable site on HA, Kadam et al. developed a cyclic peptide mimic of the broadly neutralizing antibody that targets HA. This antiviral peptide can effectively prevent HA conformational rearrangement and viral cell entry, therefore used as influenza therapeutics. In addition, this cyclic peptide drug has a half-life of 2.5 hours and shows no toxicity in mice, suggesting its potential in clinical applications. Importantly, this study was the first to show that a small peptide molecule can have the same antiviral effect as an antibody.
GenScript also synthesizes high quality peptide libraries for drug discovery, vaccine design, epitope mapping, and proteomics research.
