Peptide dimerisation inhibitors against myc and max

Abstract

Aberrant expression of many normal genes in a particular cell type can lead to neoplastic disease. Such genes have been termed proto-oncogenes and encode proteins with diverse functions. Many of these proteins elicit their effects through interactions with other proteins. Development of agents that can inhibit specific interactions between such molecules could be of great use in the development of future anticancer therapies. Transmembrane targeted peptides have been demonstrated to reduce the dimerisation of mutant neu receptors thus inhibiting their growth stimulatory effect [1], Other motifs in proteins provide attractive sites for the design of specific inhibitors, such as the leucine zipper [2].