Peptide bioregulation

Peptide bioregulators are fractions of proteins, the molecules of which are short chains (only 2-4 units) of amino acids. Initially, such peptides were isolated from the organs and tissues of animals, and then synthesised.

Proteins, the main building material of the body, regulate most of its vital functions including the aging process. Over the years, the synthesis of proteins in cells as well as in a diseased state or under the influence of damaging factors is reduced. Peptides can restore the protein secretion in a cell, i.e. restore their 'performance'.

Since a particular peptide is a specific sequence of amino acids, it is a unique information medium. This information determines the selectivity of the action of the peptide, that is the ability to transfer information to a well-defined cell type. This means that a particular peptide has an effect on a strictly specific type of tissue (tissue-specific action).

Peptides regulate the gene activity by complementary binding to a specific DNA region (this interaction plays a key role in a number of fundamental processes for storing and transmitting the genetic information). Due to this binding, they regulate the spatial form (conformation) of DNA and gene expression, and contribute to the stimulation of protein synthesis. That means a cell begins to work as in a young and healthy body.

Thus, short biologically active peptides are essential tissue-specific modulators of gene expression and the modulators of DNA methylation in many cases. This means that short peptides can be used as effective epigenetic regulatory signalling molecules that affect gene functioning and cell differentiation. The molecular mechanisms of the regulatory action of short peptides have not been insufficiently researched. However, there is evidence that peptides can interact specifically with DNA and recognise the methylation status.

On that basis, a hypothesis has been proposed that peptides, in interacting (binding) with the methylated promoter DNA sites, can prevent the action of methyl transferase DNA, leaving these sites unmethylated, which is in most cases obligatory for gene expression. This is one of the possible mechanisms of transcription regulation with peptides. The obtained findings that short peptides can reduce the level of promoter methylation fall within the framework of the proposed hypothesis about the mechanisms of transcription regulation with short peptides.