Team:SDU-Denmark/Tour71
Medical aspects
Although there is no doubt that peptide aptamers are potential tivals of traditional antibodies in medicine and therapy, some challenges have to accomodated before they can be implemented clinically.
Size of the peptide
The bigger molecule the larger risk of immunogenicity. To avoid an respons from the human immune system it is important that the peptide is as small as possible. If the immune system develops immunization against the peptide aptamer it will not have any function at all.
Effector mechanism
Traditional antibodies have a Fab region, that bind to microbes of which they have specificity. Activation of the immune respons is conducted through their Fc region that interacts with Fc receptors on cell surfaces of lymphocytes and/or other effector cells of the immune system.
Half-life
Peptide aptamers targeted at chronic diseases have to have a very long degradation time.