Natural Peptides with Potential Applications in Drug Development, Diagnosis, and/or Biotechnology
1Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology, Department of Pharmacology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Medical School of São Paulo), São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2Infectiologie Animale et Santé Publique (CEA/iBiTecS/SPI/LIAS), CEA de Saclay, Bt 152, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
3Institute of Natural Medicine, University of Toyama, 2630 Sugitani, Toyama–shi, Toyama, Japan
Natural Peptides with Potential Applications in Drug Development, Diagnosis, and/or Biotechnology
Description
Natural peptides exert their biological activities via different types of interactions regarding variable targeted tissues, cells, membranes, receptors, ion channels, enzymes, associated to central and/or vital physiological processes: cell integrity, central and/or peripheral nervous system, muscles, or blood circulation, and so on. In addition, in most cases these recognition/interaction are highly specific, and among the more specific natural ligands are animal toxins. For this reason, animal toxins constitute unique molecular probes in identifying and studying the targets they recognize. Identification and characterization of toxins, associated with studies for determination of their mechanism of action, have not only complemented our understanding on the mechanisms of toxic effects of toxins in envenomation process, but it has also contributed to make a bridge with our current knowledge about the physiological functioning of the cells. In some cases, these studies have also opened new perspectives for the use of these venom components in biomedicine, as it has been described for a number of natural toxins, especially proteins, oligopeptides, and peptides.
Investigators are invited to contribute with original research and/or review articles on this area, specifically those exploiting the mechanism of action and the structure-activity aspects of natural peptides. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- Characterization of novel and original natural peptides with desirable description of target(s) and/or mechanism(s) of action
- Well-known natural peptides with unexpected target(s) and/or mechanism(s) of action
- Natural peptides with mammal endogenous correlates
- Natural peptides acting on vital physiological machinery with potential application as therapeutics
- Use of natural peptides to describe novel physiological pathways/mechanism of action
- Manuscripts exploiting the use of natural peptides in biotechnology or therapy, as drug or as model for the development of drug
- Structure-function relationship of natural peptides
Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijpep/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: