Discovery platform yields peptide prediction hit

The technology behind Compugen's recent announcement of positive therapeutic effects of a novel peptide in an animal study of inflammatory bowel disease is the company's Disease-Associated Conformation (DAC) blockers discovery platform. The peptide-its CGEN-25007, an antagonist of the gp96 protein that triggers both the immune system-was discovered using the platform.

The company says the discovery followed successful in vitro and in vivo validation studies for acute inflammation. Researchers observed "very high levels" of anti-inflammatory activity in those studies, prompting them to evaluate the compound for use against chronic inflammatory conditions.

The platform is based on the integration of methods and ideas from such varied sources as information theory, machine learning and statistics, and mathematical analysis for detecting intra-molecular interactions within the proteins, the company says. Its goal is the systematic discovery of novel peptides that block proteins from achieving certain disease-associated conformations.

- read the announcement