title: Cell-penetrating peptides: design, synthesis, and applications.
abstract: The intrinsic property of cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) to deliver therapeutic molecules (nucleic acids, drugs, imaging agents) to cells and tissues in a nontoxic manner has indicated that they may be potential components of future drugs and disease diagnostic agents. These versatile peptides are simple to synthesize, functionalize, and characterize yet are able to deliver covalently or noncovalently conjugated bioactive cargos (from small chemical drugs to large plasmid DNA) inside cells, primarily via endocytosis, in order to obtain high levels of gene expression, gene silencing, or tumor targeting. Typically, CPPs are often passive and nonselective yet must be functionalized or chemically modified to create effective delivery vectors that succeed in targeting specific cells or tissues. Furthermore, the design of clinically effective systemic delivery systems requires the same amount of attention to detail in both design of the delivered cargo and the cell-penetrating peptide used to deliver it.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Biotechnology, Institute of Technology, Tartu University , 504 11 Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Dana Maria
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Copolovici
authors.forename: Kent
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Langel
authors.forename: Elo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Eriste
authors.forename: Ülo
authors.initials: Ü
authors.lastname: Langel
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D057846:Cell-Penetrating Peptides / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D004337:Drug Carriers / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D021381:Protein Transport
chemical_list: D057846:Cell-Penetrating Peptides; D004337:Drug Carriers