___________________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract In this work, equations describing the effect of pH on the electrophoretic behaviour are used to investigate migration of a series of polyprotic amphoteric peptide hormones between pH 2 and 12 in polybrenecoated capillaries. Polybrene (hexadimethrin bromide) is a polymer composed of quaternary a...

Many neuropeptides and peptide hormones are very similar to antimicrobial peptides in their amino acid composition, amphipathic design, cationic charge and size. Their antimicrobial activities suggest they may also be directly involved in innate defense. Here we discuss recent advances in understanding how the mammalian nervous system, equipped with neuropeptides and peptide hormones with poten...

Four heart hormones, namely atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), long-acting natriuretic peptide (LANP), vessel dilator and kaliuretic peptide reduce up to 97% of cancer cells in vitro. These four cardiac hormones eliminate up to 80% of human pancreatic adenocarcinomas, two-thirds of human breast carcinomas and up to 86% of human small-cell lung carcinomas growing in athymic mice. ANP given intrav...

One of the largest family of cell surface proteins, G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) regulate virtually all known physiological processes in mammals. With seven transmembrane segments, they respond to diverse range of extracellular stimuli and represent a major class of drug targets. Peptidergic GPCRs use endogenous peptides as ligands. To understand the mechanism of GPCR activation and rati...

Evolution often diversifies a peptide hormone family into multiple subfamilies, which exert distinct activities by exclusive interaction with specific receptors. Here we show that systematic swapping of pre-existing variation in a subfamily of plant CLE peptide hormones leads to a synthetic bifunctional peptide that exerts activities beyond the original subfamily by interacting with multiple re...

Secreted frizzled-related proteins (sFRPs) are secreted glycoproteins involved in neoplastic growth. Four hormones synthesized in the heart, namely vessel dilator, atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), kaliuretic peptide (KP) and long-acting natriuretic peptide (LANP), have anticancer effects both in vitro and in vivo. These heart hormones were evaluated for their ability to inhibit sFRP-3, which i...

The critical phylogenetic position of ascidians suggests that evolutionary origins of neuropeptides and hormones of vertebrates are highly likely to be conserved in ascidians, and the cosmopolitan species, Ciona intestinalis, is expected to be an excellent deuterostome invertebrate model for studies on neuropeptides and hormones of vertebrates. Nevertheless, molecular and functional characteriz...

Four cardiac hormones, namely atrial natriuretic peptide, vessel dilator, kaliuretic peptide, and long-acting natriuretic peptide, reduce up to 97% of all cancer cells in vitro. These four cardiac hormones eliminate up to 86% of human small-cell lung carcinomas, two-thirds of human breast cancers, and up to 80% of human pancreatic adenocarcinomas growing in athymic mice. Their anticancer mechan...

Obesity, influencing the increase of incidence of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular complications and cancer is a growing medical problem worldwide. The feelings of hunger and satiety are stimulated by the "gut-brain axis", where a crucial role is played by gastrointestinal hormones: glucagon-like peptide 1, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, pancreatic polypeptide, peptide YY, oxyntom...

Obesity is a major risk factor for a number of cardiovascular diseases, and causes cardiac and vascular disease through well-known mediators including arterial hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and type-2 diabetes. Obesity is characterized by an excess of adipose tissue, which efficiently stores energy for times of starvation. In addition, multiple reports in the last decade have underlined the imp...