title: Synthetic Cystine-Knot Miniproteins - Valuable Scaffolds for Polypeptide Engineering.
abstract: Peptides with the cystine-knot architecture, often termed knottins, are promising scaffolds for biomolecular engineering. These unique molecules combine diverse bioactivities with excellent structural, thermal, and proteolytical stability. Being different in the composition and structure of their amino acid backbone, knottins share the same core element, namely cystine knot, which is built by six cysteine residues forming three disulfides upon oxidative folding. This motif ensures a notably rigid framework that highly tolerates both rational and combinatorial changes in the primary structure. Being accessible through recombinant production and total chemical synthesis, cystine-knot miniproteins can be endowed with novel bioactivities by variation of surface-exposed loops and incorporation of non-natural elements within their non-conserved regions towards the generation of tailor-made peptidic compounds. In this chapter the topology of cystine-knot peptides, their synthesis and applications for diagnostics and therapy is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Technische Universität Darmstadt, Alarich-Weiss-Str. 4, 64287, Darmstadt, Germany. Avrutina@Biochemie-TUD.de.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Avrutina
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D057771:Cystine-Knot Miniproteins / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy*; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D057771:Cystine-Knot Miniproteins; D010446:Peptide Fragments
keywords: Cyclic peptides; Cystine-knot miniproteins; Disulfide-rich peptides; Peptide engineering; Peptide synthesis; Peptidomimetics