title: Peptidic modulators of protein-protein interactions: progress and challenges in computational design.
abstract: With the decline in productivity of drug-development efforts, novel approaches to rational drug design are being introduced and developed. Naturally occurring and synthetic peptides are emerging as novel promising compounds that can specifically and efficiently modulate signaling pathways in vitro and in vivo. We describe sequence-based approaches that use peptides to mimic proteins in order to inhibit the interaction of the mimicked protein with its partners. We then discuss a structure-based approach, in which protein-peptide complex structures are used to rationally design and optimize peptidic inhibitors. We survey flexible peptide docking techniques and discuss current challenges and future directions in the rational design of peptidic inhibitors.
authors.affiliation: The Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science and Nutrition, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: Mor
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rubinstein
authors.forename: Masha Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Niv
mesh_terms: D019295:Computational Biology; D015195:Drug Design; D010455:Peptides / Q000494:pharmacology*; D011485:Protein Binding / Q000187:drug effects; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides