Abstract
In spite of the controversy regarding sugar and amino acid mirror-image symmetry and nature, it has been demonstrated that an intrinsic preference for left-handedness or right-handedness would depend on weak energy responsible for stabilising L-amino acids. A weak neutral current interaction involves an enantiomeric energy difference for L-amino acids to have sufficient magnitude to break open, non-equilibrium, racemic systems chiral symmetry. L-amino acid can form complex structural atom arrangements when building proteins to allow specific chemical and molecular interactions such as enzyme-substrate and antigen-antibody complexes. Thus, pathogens can take advantage of higher vertebrates molecular immune systems extremely well organised molecular L-amino acid composition to establish efficient evasion mechanisms. Plasmodium falciparum (the most lethal form of malaria) clearly employs its protein ligands non-polymorphic regions when binding to specific receptors on its target cells. These sequences are normally poorly immunogenic and nonprotection inducing when used as immunogens. It has been shown that these ligands native L-amino acid composition and their secondary structure play a vital role in maintaining a code of silence to avoid a host immune response. Our institute has established two strategies for overcoming this problem; one consists of replacing critical ligand-derived peptide binding residues by others having similar side chain mass but opposite polarity and the other consists of altering the peptide bond and the nature of α-carbon asymmetry. This review summarises the most widely used pseudopeptide approaches for novel immunogen synthesis, emphasising their potential in peptide-based vaccines and as therapeutical agents for infectious diseases such as malaria.
Keywords: peptide-based vaccine, Plasmodium falciparum, homochirality, molecular orbital system, Peptide bond surrogates
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Catalytic C-H bond activation as a tool for functionalization of heterocycles
The major topic is the functionalization of heterocycles through catalyzed C-H bond activation. The strategies based on C-H activation not only provide straightforward formation of C-C or C-X bonds but, more importantly, allow for the avoidance of pre-functionalization of one or two of the cross-coupling partners. The beneficial impact of ...read more
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