Peptidomimetic synthesis: drug discovery for Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

The biomolecular system mainly consists of nucleic acids, proteins, peptides, and sugar chains, and they play a critical role in cell growth, differentiation induction, apoptosis, and immunity. Among these components, peptides are the most commonly studied due to their relatively low molecular weight and high biocompatibility as well as in vitro and in vivo lability and often applied as drugs, agricultural chemicals, food, and tools in diagnostic and biological research. Peptidomimetics have been reported to function as protein-protein interaction inhibitors and thus could serve in many biomolecular systems. This chapter describes the synthesis of peptidomimetics used for discovery of drugs that target β-secretase inhibitors and amyloid-β aggregation inhibitors in Alzheimer’s disease. For this purpose, natural amino acids and other synthetic acids or amines were used in a solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS).