Reagents such as antibodies that target specific proteins are useful in research and medicine. There are methods to engineer antibody-like molecules that target the soluble regions of proteins, but targeting transmembrane regions remains a challenge. Now Yin et al. describe a computational method to design peptides that target specific transmembrane helices. Peptides were designed that were specific for each of two closely related integrins involved in cell adhesion.
H. Yin, J. S. Slusky, B. W. Berger, R. S. Walters, G. Vilaire, R. I. Litvinov, J. D. Lear, G. A. Caputo, J. S. Bennett, W. F. DeGrado, Computational design of peptides that target transmembrane helices. Science 315, 1817-1822 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]
