Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Medicine and Health Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Cancer-Targeting Immunostimulatory Peptides As An Immunotherapeutic Approach To Cancer, Rachel Montel Aug 2020

Cancer-Targeting Immunostimulatory Peptides As An Immunotherapeutic Approach To Cancer, Rachel Montel

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This dissertation reports the synthesis and biological applications of bifunctional trimeric peptides with B7H6-derived NKp30 binding motifs that serve to activate an immunocytotoxic response in natural killer cells and a GRP78-binding motif that can target tumors that express surface GRP78. In this manner the cancer-targeting immunostimulatory peptides are anticipated to directly bind and activate effector NK92-MI cells while also recognizing and binding to target A549 tumor cells to facilitate NK cell-dependent immunocytotoxicity of the targeted tumors. The NKp30 binding peptide motifs are derived from the tumor associated B7H6 antigen that is often downregulated or shed from the surface of tumors …


An In Silico Study Of Small Molecule Anti-Cancer Agents Targeting Dna G-Quadruplexes, Holli-Joi Sullivan Jun 2020

An In Silico Study Of Small Molecule Anti-Cancer Agents Targeting Dna G-Quadruplexes, Holli-Joi Sullivan

Theses and Dissertations

Free ligand binding molecular dynamic simulations are a powerful tool used to probe the ligand binding process, mechanism and pathway and the insight gained can help expedite the early stages of drug discovery. Using these methods, we model the binding of two small molecule anti-cancer agents BRACO19 and CX-5461 to a variety of DNA G-quadruplexes (G4s) and a DNA Duplex. The first study focuses on the binding of BRACO19 to three different topological folds (parallel, anti-parallel and hybrid) of the human telomeric G4s. Our detailed analysis identified the most stable binding modes were end stacking and groove binding for the …


Comparative Molecular Transporter Properties Of Cyclic Peptides Containing Tryptophan And Arginine Residues Formed Through Disulfide Cyclization, Eman H. M. Mohammed, Dindyal Mandal, Saghar Mozaffari, Magdy Abdel-Hamied Zahran, Amany Mostafa Osman, Rakesh Kumar Tiwari, Keykavous Parang Jun 2020

Comparative Molecular Transporter Properties Of Cyclic Peptides Containing Tryptophan And Arginine Residues Formed Through Disulfide Cyclization, Eman H. M. Mohammed, Dindyal Mandal, Saghar Mozaffari, Magdy Abdel-Hamied Zahran, Amany Mostafa Osman, Rakesh Kumar Tiwari, Keykavous Parang

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

We have previously reported cyclic cell-penetrating peptides [WR]5 and [WR]4 as molecular transporters. To optimize further the utility of our developed peptides for targeted therapy in cancer cells using the redox condition, we designed a new generation of peptides and evaluated their cytotoxicity as well as uptake behavior against different cancer cell lines. Thus, cyclic [C(WR)xC] and linear counterparts (C(WR)xC), where x = 4–5, were synthesized using Fmoc/tBu solid-phase peptide synthesis, purified, and characterized. The compounds did not show any significant cytotoxicity (at 25 µM) against ovarian (SK-OV-3), leukemia (CCRF-CEM), gastric adenocarcinoma (CRL-1739), breast …