Invited Speaker International Peptide Symposium 2023

Macrocyclic peptides with better membrane permeability (#4)

Hiroaki Suga 1
  1. The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, TOKYO, Japan

The genetic code is the law of translation, where genetic information encoded in RNA is translated to amino acid sequence. The code consists of tri-nucleotides, so-called codons, assigning to particular amino acids. In cells or in ordinary cell-free translation systems originating from prokaryotes or eukaryotes, the usage of amino acids is generally restricted to 20 proteinogenic (standard) kinds, and thus the expressed peptides are composed of only such monomers. However, we recently devised a new means to reprogram the genetic code, which allows us to express non-standard peptides containing multiple non-proteinogenic amino acids in vitro. This lecture will describe the most recent development in the genetic code reprogramming approach that enables us to express natural product-like non-standard peptides. The technology involves (1) efficient macrocyclization of peptides, (2) incorporation of non-standard amino acids, such as N-methyl amino acids, and (3) reliable synthesis of libraries with the complexity of more than a trillion members. When the technology is coupled with an in vitro display system, referred to as RaPID (Random Peptide Integrated Discovery) system, the non-standard cyclic peptide libraries with various ring sizes can be screened (selected) against various drug targets inexpensively, less laboriously, and very rapidly. This lectures discuss new libraries yielding macrocyclic peptides with better membrane permeability.