Functional Peptides for PNP

To achieve selective nucleic acid delivery using peptide nanoparticles (PNPs), functional peptides are required, including target-binding peptides that recognize target proteins and cytosol-translocating peptides that promote intracellular delivery.

To obtain such functional peptides, we have established our proprietary cDNA display technology, which enables efficient selection of desired peptides from approximately 10 trillion candidates.

cDNA display is a technology for obtaining peptides with desired functions from peptide libraries in which each peptide is linked to the nucleic acid encoding its sequence. After recovering the desired peptides, the nucleic acid portion can be amplified and analyzed to identify the peptide sequence information.

Using this technology, we can obtain not only target-binding peptides with affinity for target proteins, but also cytosol-translocating peptides that pass through the cell membrane and move into cells.

By combining target-binding and cytosol-translocating peptides obtained by cDNA display with peptide sequences that provide functions such as self-assembly and endosomal escape, we design and prepare PNPs optimized for each target tissue.

A major feature of the PNP nucleic acid delivery platform is that functional peptides can be modularized and exchanged, enabling efficient construction of PNPs optimized for each target.