Compugen Announces Inhibition of Angiogenesis by Novel Peptide
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Compugen Ltd. has announced that CGEN-25017, a novel peptide antagonist of the Angiopoietin/Tie-2 pathway, has shown inhibitory effects in a model of angiogenesis.
These initial results support the potential use of this novel peptide for the treatment of angiogenesis-related diseases, such as cancer, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, psoriasis, arthritis, and atherosclerosis.
The sequence and potential use of CGEN-25017 was first predicted in silico using Compugen’s DAC Blockers Platform, which was designed to predict peptides that block proteins of interest from achieving certain disease-associated conformations.
Using the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model, a widely recognized model to examine compounds affecting angiogenesis, CGEN-25017 demonstrated potent dose-dependent anti-angiogenic activity. These findings further support previous data obtained for CGEN-25017 in an in vitro multi-cellular assay of angiogenesis.
“Angiogenesis, the growth of new capillary blood vessels in the body, is an important natural process for healing and reproduction. However, abnormal blood vessel growth is now recognized as a common denominator underlying an increasing list of deadly and debilitating conditions. At present, targeting angiogenesis is one of the most intensely studied approaches to cancer treatment and therefore discovering a novel peptide with the ability to inhibit angiogenisis is an important breakthrough.” said Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag, vice president, research and development.
“Of equal importance, we are very pleased to see the continuing validation of our unique DAC Blockers Platform. Understanding the folding of proteins remains one of the key mysteries of molecular biology, and therefore the now proven ability of our DAC Blockers platform to predict the sequence of peptides that should block the folding of certain proteins into their disease associated state is anticipated to yield a number of product candidates for unmet clinical needs.”
CGEN-25017 is the third peptide predicted using Compugen’s DAC Blockers Discovery Platform that has shown therapeutic potential. Additional peptides predicted by this platform to be conformation blockers targeting several other proteins, are now undergoing initial experimental evaluation.
