Heptapeptides characterization

Recently, Jung et al. [42] developed two artificial neural network models to discriminate intestinal barrier-permeable heptapeptides identified by the peroral phage display experiments from randomly generated heptapeptides. There are two kinds of descriptors one is binary code of amino acid types (each position used 20 bits) and the other, which is called VHSE, is a property descriptor that characterizes the hydrophobic, steric, and electronic properties of 20 coded amino acids. Both types of descriptors produced statistically significant models and the predictive accuracy was about 70%. 

Dubost, D., Kaufman, M., Zimmerman, J., Bogusky, M. J., Coddington, A. B., Pitzenberger, S. M. Characterization of a solid state reaction product from a lyophilized formulation of a cyclic heptapeptide. A novel example of an excipient induced oxidation. Pharm Res 13 1811-1814 (1996). 

Deltorphins are endogenous linear heptapeptides, isolated from skin extracts of frogs belonging to the genus Phyllomedusa, that have a higher affinity and selectivity for delta opioid-binding sites than any other natural compound known [36]. Two deltorphins with the sequence Tyr-Ala-Phe-Asp (or Glu)-Val-Val-Gly-NH2 have been identified and well characterized [36]. 

Based on their finding amphibian skin peptides, which were counterparts to other mammalian bioactive peptides, Erspamer and coworkers examined amphibian skin for opioid peptides (see Ref 663 for a review). This led first to the isolation and characterization of dermorphin (212, Fig. 7.41), which is a ja-se-lective peptide (see Table 7.13), from the skin of South American Phyllemedusinae hylid frogs in the early 1980s (664). Inspection of the sequence of one of the cloned cDNAs for the precursor of dermorphin suggested the existence of another heptapeptide with a similar iV-terminal sequence (665). This then led to the isolation of deltorphin (alsocalled dermenkephalin or deltorphin A, 213, Fig. 7.41), the first S-selective amphibian opioid peptide, from these frogs (666, 667). Synthesis confirmed that the amino acid in position 2 of deltorphin was o-methionine rather than L-methionine (666,668, 669). Two additional peptides [o-Ala ldeltorphin I (also referred to as deltorphin C, 214, Fig. 7.41) and [o-Ala ]deltorphin II (also referred to as deltorphin B, 25, Fig. 7.5) were subsequently discovered (106) which exhibited even greater 8-receptor affinity and exceptional selectivity... 

The first chemical stractures of cyanobacterial cyclic peptide toxins were identified in the early 1980s and the number of fully characterized toxin variants has greatly increased since the 1990s. To-date there are 77 different microcystins isolated from cyanobacteria (Table 40.3). The first such compounds found in freshwater cyanobacteria were cyclic heptapeptides with the general stracture of cyclo-(D-alanine -X -D-MeAsp -Z" -Adda -D-Glutamate -Mdha ) in which X and Z are variable amino acids, o-MeAsp is D-eryt/jro-p-methylaspartic acid, and Mdha is A-methyldehydroalanine (Eigure 40.1a). The amino acid Adda, (2S, 3S, 8S, 9S)-3-amino-9-methoxy-2,6,8- trimethyl-10-phenyldeca-4,6-dienoic acid, is the most unusual structural moiety in... 

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