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Stapled peptides

Magic bullets in nature's arsenal

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Selectivity is a key obstacle in drug development. A new study describes how “peptide stapling,” a technique for making peptide α-helices more potent and cell permeable, allows the design of MCL-1 inhibitors with extraordinary selectivity.

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Figure 1: A primary goal of drug development is to design 'magic bullets,' compounds that selectively target only one of a closely related family of proteins.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Joshua A. Kritzer is in the Department of Chemistry, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Joshua A Kritzer

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  1. Joshua A Kritzer
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Correspondence to Joshua A Kritzer.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Kritzer, J. Magic bullets in nature's arsenal. Nat Chem Biol 6, 566–567 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.407

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