New Applications and Developments in Synthetic Peptide Chemistry

Dear Colleagues,

Peptide-based therapeutics are of great relevance in biomedicine for the treatment of pathologies of enormous social impact, including cancer, neurodegeneration, and viral diseases, like the current COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, peptide inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 enzymes are under investigation in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Peptides are able to interact with biomacromolecules involved in crucial biological pathways such as proteins and nucleic acids. Moreover, after functionalization by DNA nucleobases, they become powerful tools in DNA and RNA targeting, as testified by the scientific literature on peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) and nucleopeptides, with known diagnostic and therapeutic potential. Nonetheless, peptide analogues of a different nature are endowed with self-assembly properties at the origin of supramolecular assemblies and nanomaterials, which are attracting increasing attention in nanomedicine and biotechnology. In this Special Issue, we wish to focus on the novel experimental and theoretical approaches for peptide design and development, with particular attention being paid to the solid phase synthesis of natural peptides, PNA, nucleopeptides, peptoids and more general peptide analogs. However, contributions to the solution synthesis of amino acid monomers as building blocks for peptide chain elongation, as well as peptide-nucleic acid and peptide–protein interaction, peptide aggregation, nucleoamino acid and nucleopeptide chemistry, peptide–metal complexes and antimicrobial poly-amino acids are also welcome, as they could improve overall knowledge with regard to the amino acid-based chemistry at the interface between peptide design and pharmaceutical applications. Other themes of interest are inherent to the computational chemistry applied to peptide science.

This Special Issue is open to the submission of both original articles and reviews that describe research and ideas on themes treated in this issue for new applications and developments in synthetic peptide chemistry.

Dr. Giovanni N. Roviello
Dr. Rosanna Palumbo
Guest Editors

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