title: Azapeptides as pharmacological agents.
abstract: Azapeptides, formed by replacing the C(alpha) of amino acid residues by nitrogen, are promising peptidomimetic compounds. Azaamino acids impart a unique conformational property to peptide structures because of the loss of chirality and reduction of flexibility of the parent linear peptide. The peculiar conformational properties make azaamino acids an attractive tool for drug design involving specific secondary structures in peptides and proteins. Additionally, since azapeptides are less susceptible to enzymatic breakdown by proteases, they may possibly lead to orally active drugs with longer duration of action. One of the advantages of azapeptides is their unproblematic synthesis allowing retention of the amino acid side chain. Azapeptides have been developed by several groups for the design of hormone analogues, protease inhibitors and active site titrants.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana, Askerceva 7, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. anamarija.zega@ffa.uni-lj.si
authors.forename: Anamarija
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zega
mesh_terms: D001372:Aza Compounds / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D015195:Drug Design; D006728:Hormones / Q000819:agonists; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D009842:Oligopeptides / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases / Q000187:drug effects; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D001372:Aza Compounds; D006728:Hormones; D009842:Oligopeptides; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases