Chemical Biology and Biomedical Application of Synthetic Molecules Targeted to Apoptosis Regulated by the Bcl-2 Family

摘要

Protein-protein or protein-ligand interaction plays a crucial role in a variety of biological processes. Apoptosis is generally regulated by the fine balance and interplay among the members of Bcl-2 family proteins and considered to start from the formation of heterodimerization of anti-apoptotic and pro-apoptotic members. In the 3-D structure of a complex between an anti-apoptotic member Bcl-X_L and the death-promoting region of the Bcl-2 related protein Bak, the Bak peptide is shown to adopt a a helical structure. Based on this structure, we try to modulate the interaction with the target proteins through several different routes.