Peptides - From Research Tools to 'Soft' Drugs?

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, regulatory peptides have played an ever increasing role as research tools but as therapeutics they have been applied in only a very limited number of indications. The recent call by the public for 'soft' pharmaceuticals and 'soft' chemistry, the increasing knowledge on peptide receptors and intracellular signalling, the design of more potent and specific peptide ligands as well as the availability of sufficient quantities of large peptides by genetic engineering may be the starting point for a new era of peptides as 'natural' therapeutic agents in human and animal medicine. In the first part, this review focusses on new achievements in peptide chemistry as well as on the role of peptides as research tools, i.e. their pleiotropic nature and their mechanisms of action. The second part summarizes new concepts for the application of peptides in medical diagnosis and therapy.