Sunday, November 17, 2013

Peptide Therapy & Its Uses

By Armand Zeiders


Peptide therapy has many possible medical applications. Medical researchers believe that peptide therapy might eventually be used to treat a variety of autoimmune disorders as well as diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and even common problems such as allergies.

When amino acids are joined together in long chains, then a peptide bond is has been created. The peptides will then work to become proteins, which are highly important structures within our cells, carrying out or catalyzing nearly every job that must take place within our cells. There are many different types of proteins, and the type that is created depends upon the kind of amino acids in the peptides as well as the structure of the peptides themselves.

This important process begins with the building blocks of protein, which are the amino acids. When two amino acids are joined, like links in a chain, this is known as a peptide bond. While these are long and planar, they also can bend and fold, and the way that they fold has a huge effect not only on the type of protein that is formed, but also how well it functions. A protein with any type of peptide mutation can be the cause of a serious disease or biological anomaly, such as Crohn's disease or anemia.

This formation of peptides and proteins is a natural process occurring in all humans. However, the process also can be achieved in a lab artificially as peptide synthesis or the creation of synthetic peptides. These synthetic peptides can be copies of naturally occurring peptides or completely new types of peptides.

Peptide synthesis has many applications for scientists. These peptides can be studied do determine whether or not a particular protein has been isolated. Scientists also use peptide synthesis as a way to study the structure of proteins. In addition, the use of peptide synthesis to create medical treatments and vaccines is also a very important application. Researchers often rely on private biotech companies to produce custom synthetic peptides.

There are already many studies that show the usefulness of peptide therapy in fighting a huge range of diseases. After all, mutations occur in all different types of proteins, and each of these mutations has serious ramifications. Developing a therapy that can alter the peptides means that researchers might be able to alleviate the effects of or completely halt the progression of diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, cancer and much more. A recent study using mice showed that the effects of Parkinson's disease could be slowed using a new vaccine. Other studies indicate that peptide therapy can be used to greatly slow the progression of growth in cancerous tumors.




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