Studies on bioorganic chemistry of peptides active against insects and plants

Abstract

Peptides are key molecules in various biological events, and certain types of animals, such as scorpions, have venom, which includes a variety of peptide toxins. Since venoms contain peptides with various structures and activities, they are recognized as "natural libraries" for pesticide and drug discovery. On the other hand, "synthetic libraries" can be readily prepared by utilizing combinatorial chemistry approaches. Millions of peptide sequences generated by this method can be tested for the biological activity of interest using a high-throughput screening system. Here we introduce the isolation and characterization of novel insecticidal peptides from scorpion venom, and plant immunity-activating peptides from synthetic random libraries. © Pesticide Science Society of Japan.