Peptide - Renew Medical Clinic

Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Typically, peptides contain less than 50 amino acids. Anything longer is considered a protein. Peptides serve many important biological functions. Some key facts about peptides:

• Peptides are synthesized naturally by ribosomes or artificially through chemical peptide synthesis.
• They can be linear chains or cyclic molecules where the amino and carboxyl termini are linked.
• Peptides play critical roles as signaling molecules, hormones, neurotransmitters, and antimicrobial agents. For example:
  • Oxytocin is a neuropeptide hormone involved in social bonding, childbirth, and lactation.
  • Endorphins are peptide neurotransmitters that act as natural pain relievers.
  • Defensins and cathelicidins are peptides made by the immune system to kill invasive microbes.
• Bioactive peptides can be created through the digestion of dietary proteins. These food-derived peptides provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition.
• The peptide bond is very stable chemically, giving peptides advantages as therapeutics over some small molecules.

While the distinction is not fully standardized, peptides generally have 50 or fewer amino acids, while proteins are longer. This smaller size allows peptides to adopt different conformations and fit into binding sites that are unavailable to larger proteins. The drug development industry leverages techniques like phage display and computational modeling to design synthetic peptides for medical applications. Possible uses include enhancing vaccine immunogenicity, regulating metabolism, delivering drugs, and inhibiting protein-protein interactions. In summary, peptides are versatile, ubiquitous biomolecules with chains shorter than 50 amino acids. As illustrated by peptides such as insulin, glutathione, and the amyloid-β plaques implicated in Alzheimer's, they play irreplaceable roles in human health and disease. Advances in peptidic drugs offer exciting opportunities for better patient care through precision-targeted therapies.