Interaction of peptides and small molecules with biological targets

During my PhD course, I focused my attention on the conformational analysis of peptides that interact with GPCR and ligand-receptor interactions from NMR spectroscopy with possible application to cytotoxic agents binding to DNA. In particular, I investigated the conformational behaviour of peptide analogues of Urotensin, Melanocortin and Somatostatin in water solution and membrane mimetic environment (SDS and DPC micelles). Another research field was the NMR-based screening as potent technique for the identification of small molecules that interact with macromolecule targets. Several methods based on the ligand observation have been proposed in the literature, among these WaterLOGSY (water-ligand observed via gradient spectroscopy), and STD-NMR (saturation transfer difference) experiments. I applied these NMR techniques for the evaluation of the DNA interactions of a new series of thiophen-naphthoquinones with interesting cytotoxic activity.