Shared research resources are labs and offices that provide specialized technical resources to support research across specialties and disciplines. Funded by a combination of institutional support, user fees and grants, these facilities are an integral part of Pitt's research infrastructure. Offering access to specialized expertise and instrumentation without bias, they propel Pitt toward biomedical research excellence.
This Research Resource Nexus edition introduces the Peptide and Peptoid Synthesis Core.
Researchers from diverse fields, such as surgery, bioengineering, chemistry, immunology, and more, from the health sciences schools and beyond, use the Peptide and Peptoid Synthesis Core (PPSC) for their diverse peptide and peptoid research needs.
Custom peptides and peptoids are critical to many applications, like
- antigen discovery and vaccine development,
- in situ or in vivo imaging and localization,
- enzyme activity assays,
- drug discovery and development, and
- targeted therapeutics.
Watch the core's video introduction.
Laboratory Manager Kazi Islam and Assistant Manager Ray Yurko are highly knowledgeable and experienced protein biochemists—each with more than thirty years in the field. This team brings a dedication to quality and attention to detail to every project—whether the project requires routine processing or the latest cutting-edge methods.
Located at the Center for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, the facility is your source for
- novel methods of peptide modification;
- peptide conjugation (including miRNA, siRNA and chelating agents);
- peptide/peptoid synthesis and modification;
- routine peptide/peptoid processing;
- purification, characterization and modification of peptides and full-length proteins (including recharacterization of clinical agents);
- clean room synthesis of clinical-grade peptides; and
- delivering products of higher yield and purity relative to most commercial manufacturers.
Testimonials
Support and services from the PPSC have been instrumental in basic and clinical research at Pitt.
- PPSC has synthesized more than 500 peptides for Walter Storkus (Department of Dermatology), which includes clinical-grade vaccines currently undergoing clinical trials. The Storkus lab aims to identify specific tumor antigens for melanoma and renal cell carcinoma. “This work could not have been accomplished without the support of PPSC,” says Storkus.
- After Maliha Zahid, now of Mayo Clinic, identified a peptide that specifically transduces cardiac cells, PPSC provided the purified peptide and multiple modifications she needed to validate those findings, as well as to study cardiac response to targeted miRNA treatment.(1,2,3)
- Tom Smithgall (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics) has used PPSC extensively in his research, which studies signaling protein function in acute myeloid leukemia. Modified peptides synthesized by PPSC have been pivotal in developing and employing high-throughput screening assays to identify drug candidates for signaling proteins (known as Src-family kinases) that drive leukemia progression.
References
1. Zahid M, Feldman KS, Garcia-Borrero G, Feinstein TN, Pogodzinski N, Xu X, Yurko R, Czachowski M, Wu YL, Mason NS, Lo CW. Cardiac Targeting Peptide, a Novel Cardiac Vector: Studies in Bio-Distribution, Imaging Application, and Mechanism of Transduction. Biomolecules. 2018 Nov 14;8(4):147. doi: 10.3390/biom8040147. PMID: 30441852; PMCID: PMC6315548.
2. Zahid M, Phillips BE, Albers SM, Giannoukakis N, Watkins SC, Robbins PD. Identification of a cardiac specific protein transduction domain by in vivo biopanning using a M13 phage peptide display library in mice. PLoS One. 2010 Aug 17;5(8):e12252. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012252. PMID: 20808875; PMCID: PMC2923200.
3. Gallicano GI, Fu J, Mahapatra S, Sharma MVR, Dillon C, Deng C, Zahid M. Reversing Cardiac Hypertrophy at the Source Using a Cardiac Targeting Peptide Linked to miRNA106a: Targeting Genes That Cause Cardiac Hypertrophy. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2022 Jul 15;15(7):871. doi: 10.3390/ph15070871. PMID: 35890169; PMCID: PMC9317130.
4. Dorman HR, Close D, Wingert BM, Camacho CJ, Johnston PA, Smithgall TE. Discovery of Non-peptide Small Molecule Allosteric Modulators of the Src-family Kinase, Hck. Front Chem. 2019 Nov 28;7:822. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2019.00822. PMID: 31850311; PMCID: PMC6893557.
5. Shen K, Moroco JA, Patel RK, Shi H, Engen JR, Dorman HR, Smithgall TE. The Src family kinase Fgr is a transforming oncoprotein that functions independently of SH3-SH2 domain regulation. Sci Signal. 2018 Oct 23;11(553):eaat5916. doi: 10.1126/scisignal.aat5916. PMID: 30352950.