Potential anticancer peptides design from the cysteine rich plant defensins: An in silico approach

Abstract

Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality worldwide preceded by cardiovascular diseases. The therapeutic approaches for drug developmentinclude the use of small molecules, antibodies, peptidesor short nucleic acid sequences. The peptide-based drugs have been developed to treat many diseases like cardiovascular diseases, cancer, metabolic disorders, immunological diseases and viral infections. More than 80 peptide drugs are already in the market. These therapeutic peptides have several important benefits over antibodies and proteins due to their small size, ease for chemical synthesis and further the ability to penetrate cell membrane. Furthermore, peptide drugs have high specificity, activity, and affinity. The plant defensins BcDef1, TPP3, NaD1, 2N2R and 2LR3 have been studied for their role in wide range of diseases. This study focussed on the conformation of plant defensins rich in disulfide bonds. The structure for BcDef1 has been predicted from the conformational ensemble. Then, we designed anticancer peptides from these defensins with computational methods. The designed anticancer peptides have been studied for their immunogenicity as well as homology with human proteome. The role of designed peptides has been suggested for interferon-gamma induction, the later has been shown to possess a very important role in cancer.