Nature Inspired Peptide Shows Antitumoral Effect

(© Image: Depositphotos) - Researchers at MedUni Vienna, Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna and Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Cancer Research demonstrate an anti-tumor effect of certain nature-derived cyclic peptides. The study, which has now been published internationally, not only demonstrates the inhibition of cell division by these peptides, but even their ability to cause cell death of cancer cells. Until now, one focus under investigation was the immunosuppressive effects of these peptides. An effect that also makes them promising candidates for a multiple sclerosis drug. The anti-tumor effects now discovered in certain lymphoid cancer cells add an important new facet to the spectrum of action of these unusual peptides. Cyclotides are small, ring-shaped peptides originally discovered in African plants in the 1960s. Later in the 2010s, one of them (kalata B1) was recognised to have an immunosuppressive effect.