Speaking today in Barcelona at the Fifth Peptide Engineering Meeting, Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ:CGEN) project manager Dr. Yossef Kliger provided an overview of Compugen’s DAC Blockers Platform and reviewed disease model data for selected product candidates. Among the product candidates reviewed were targets belonging to the Heat Shock Protein family, currently a key area of focus for Compugen with respect to this platform. A paper describing the DAC Blockers Platform for the in silico design of peptides predicted to block target proteins from attaining disease associated conformations was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 2009 Aug 18; 106(33):13797-801.
Dr. Kliger stated, “Our goal was to design peptides that have the capability to block conformational changes within a target protein, thereby modulating its activity. Towards this goal, Compugen developed a sequence-based computational method for the prediction of intra-molecular interacting alpha helices. We hypothesized that adding peptides corresponding to one of the interacting helices would interfere with the formation of the helix-helix interaction, thereby capturing the target protein in its ‘open’ conformation. To test this hypothesis, Compugen’s scientists synthesized the peptides that were derived from the predicted interacting helices of selected target proteins. The biological function of these peptides was then tested both in vitro and in vivo.”