Peptidomics screening for the discovery of uterotonic plant peptides
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Date
2012
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Volume Title
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BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology
Abstract
Drug discovery from natural products is still one of the biggest sources of novel lead compounds. In particular,
plant cyclotides, disulfide-rich peptides comprising three conserved disulfide bonds in a knotted arrangement,
known as cyclic cystine knot motif, and a head-to-tail cyclization, have been extensively investigated over the
last four decades for their use as scaffolds in drug development.
However, their distribution among flowering plants still remains limited to few species of the families of Rubiaceae (coffee), Violaceae (violet), Cucurbitaceae (cucurbit), Fabaceae (bean) and recently Solanaceae
(potato family), but it is very likely that cyclotides are more widely distributed since their predicted number in
Rubiaceae alone is ~50.000. Additionally, the pharmacological validation of plants used in traditional medicines
may trigger the discovery of novel uterotonic compounds.
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Keywords
Drug