What are Peptides?

A peptide is a short chain of amino acids, some of which are crucial for cellular function. Peptides are characterized by being much smaller than proteins, each organ or body function has its own complex of peptides that control and regulate their functions. Peptides have been shown to shorten the process of protein synthesis by interacting with the cell’s DNA.

In the presence of sufficiently specific peptides an organ tends to normalize its functions and act selectively on systems and tissues, without affecting other organs or glands of the body because they have no side effects and can be combined with each other for specific therapeutic purposes.

Several peptides are used as drugs, such as insulin, which controls sugar metabolism, and cyclosporine, which suppresses organ rejection after transplantation. More than 40 peptides are already approved as drugs and are developed by biotechnologies i.e. they are not of natural biological origin, they are mostly created through chemical formulations and because of their high efficacy synthetic peptides (SP) have a positive influence on bioavailability in the organism since in many cases they can mimic the function of a natural peptide or a full-length protein. In addition, they are bioactive molecules that are easy to produce, process and modify. They can be prepared under well-defined and controlled conditions and are generating billions in revenues. There are currently several hundred peptide-based drugs in clinical trials by various laboratories worldwide. Since peptides are an important part of the organism being of biotechnological origin they are not recognized as their own and it is for this reason that the stomach and intestines harbor innumerable enzymes that can degrade them, which means that most peptide-based drugs are administered parenterally.