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New technique for developing drugs to treat serious illnesses

Date:
November 14, 2013
Source:
University of Leicester
Summary:
Researchers exploit the power of evolution to create designer proteins to build drugs for the treatment of serious illnesses.
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An international team of researchers led by the University of Leicester has “harnessed the power of evolution” to create a new drug for possible use against heart disease, inflammation and other illnesses.

Researchers in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences and Department of Biochemistry at the University of Leicester, together with colleagues in Cambridge, the USA and Italy, have employed a new technique to create protein-based drugs.

According to Professor Nick Brindle, the lead researcher: “This technique harnesses the power of evolution to engineer specific functions into a protein, such as the ability to neutralize a toxin or to activate healing.

“This involves making a particular cell type generate millions of different variants of our protein, selecting the variants that have improved properties and then repeating the cycle until the protein has been changed to a form with the exact properties we want.”

To show how the method works, the group took a protein normally found in the body and evolved it into a form that can block a molecule involved in blood vessel growth and inflammation.

This new protein, called a ligand-trap, is now being developed as a potential therapeutic for treating heart disease, inflammation and other illnesses.

Said Professor Brindle: “The idea that you can evolve proteins into forms that do what you want is not new, but it has been very difficult to do this for many of the complex proteins that we want to use as drugs or for other applications.

“This new approach promises to make engineering of such proteins not only possible but relatively easy. In addition to medicine, these specifically evolved ‘designer proteins’ have a wide range of applications in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and agricultural industries.

“This is a big step forward. We are hoping that, over the next five years or so, this new protein can be developed into a form that could be used to treat inflammation and other conditions.”

The work is being published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Professor Brindle said: “We are really excited about getting this technique to work and are already using it to make other new molecules that we think will be useful to people. It was a real bonus for us to be able to evolve the ligand trap using the technique as this trap targets a molecule that is involved in a whole range of health problems.”


Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Leicester. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. N. P. J. Brindle, J. E. Sale, H. Arakawa, J.-M. Buerstedde, T. Nuamchit, S. Sharma, K. H. Steele. Directed Evolution of an Angiopoietin-2 Ligand Trap by Somatic Hypermutation and Cell Surface Display. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2013; 288 (46): 33205 DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M113.510578

Cite This Page:

University of Leicester. "New technique for developing drugs to treat serious illnesses." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 November 2013. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131114193243.htm>.
University of Leicester. (2013, November 14). New technique for developing drugs to treat serious illnesses. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131114193243.htm
University of Leicester. "New technique for developing drugs to treat serious illnesses." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131114193243.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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