Xu Yujia, Kirchner Michele
Department of Chemistry, Hunter College of the City University of New York, 695 Park Ave., New York, NY 10065, USA.
Bioengineering (Basel). 2021 Jan 5;8(1):5. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering8010005.
Since their first synthesis in the late 1960s, collagen mimetic peptides (CMPs) have been used as a molecular tool to study collagen, and as an approach to develop novel collagen mimetic biomaterials. Collagen, a major extracellular matrix (ECM) protein, plays vital roles in many physiological and pathogenic processes. Applications of CMPs have advanced our understanding of the structure and molecular properties of a collagen triple helix-the building block of collagen-and the interactions of collagen with important molecular ligands. The accumulating knowledge is also paving the way for developing novel CMPs for biomedical applications. Indeed, for the past 50 years, CMP research has been a fast-growing, far-reaching interdisciplinary field. The major development and achievement of CMPs were documented in a few detailed reviews around 2010. Here, we provided a brief overview of what we have learned about CMPs-their potential and their limitations. We focused on more recent developments in producing heterotrimeric CMPs, and CMPs that can form collagen-like higher order molecular assemblies. We also expanded the traditional view of CMPs to include larger designed peptides produced using recombinant systems. Studies using recombinant peptides have provided new insights on collagens and promoted progress in the development of collagen mimetic fibrillar self-assemblies.
自20世纪60年代末首次合成以来，胶原模拟肽（CMPs）一直被用作研究胶原蛋白的分子工具，以及开发新型胶原模拟生物材料的一种方法。胶原蛋白是一种主要的细胞外基质（ECM）蛋白，在许多生理和致病过程中发挥着至关重要的作用。CMPs的应用增进了我们对胶原三螺旋（胶原蛋白的基本结构单元）的结构和分子特性，以及胶原蛋白与重要分子配体相互作用的理解。积累的知识也为开发用于生物医学应用的新型CMPs铺平了道路。事实上，在过去的50年里，CMP研究一直是一个快速发展、影响深远的跨学科领域。2010年左右的一些详细综述记录了CMPs的主要发展和成就。在这里，我们简要概述了我们对CMPs的了解——它们的潜力和局限性。我们重点关注了生产异源三聚体CMPs以及能够形成胶原样高阶分子组装体的CMPs的最新进展。我们还扩展了对CMPs的传统认识，将使用重组系统生产的更大的设计肽包括在内。使用重组肽的研究为胶原蛋白提供了新的见解，并推动了胶原模拟纤维状自组装体开发的进展。
