Short synthetic peptides

Friede M, et al. Induction of immune response against a short synthetic peptide antigen coupled to small neutral liposomes containing monophosphoryl lipid A. Mol Immunol 1993 30 539. 

Recent research has suggested that short synthetic peptides containing different analogs of the first 19-23 amino acid residues of influenza hemaglutinin protein (HA) terminus may be attractive because of their pH-dependent lytic properties, with little activity at pH 7 but > 100-fold increase in transfection efficiency at pH 5. The lytic characteristics are revealed as the carboxyl groups of the aspartyl and glutamyl side chains are protonated, which allows the peptides to assume a a-helical conformation that can be inserted into the membrane bilayer. 

Some properties of phosphopeptides make them preferable to the native phosphoprotein substrates for use with phosphate detection systems. The values of for peptide substrates are two to three orders of magnitude larger than for protein substrates and allow setting assays with an appropriate substrate concentration using standard phosphate detection approaches. In addition, short synthetic peptides are inexpensive and easy to obtain. Nonetheless, although phosphopeptide substrates are clearly useful in exploring interactions in the immediate vicinity of the phosphatase active site, they are unable to probe distant (allosteric) sites. 

Synthetic peptides that are Identical with peptides synthesized in vivo are useful experimental tools In studies of proteins and cells. For example, short synthetic peptides of... 

Not unexpectedly, given its multiple activities, four distinct cell-binding sites have been identified within the native conformation of EHS laminin, with putative synthetic peptides derived from these sequences also showing biological activity. It should be noted that experiments with short synthetic peptides that attempt to model adhesive molecules have been strongly questioned (Yamada, 1991). The F9 peptide , which corresponds to an amino acid sequence in the globular... 

Recently, it has become clear that antibodies to most regions of a protein can be induced by immunizing with short synthetic peptides. This advance portends a change in the way we generate and think about antibodies from a retrospective to a prospective science. Indeed, the synthetic immunogenic technology has already had an impact on diverse areas of biology and medicine. 

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