Peptide drugs derived from natural products are in rapidly growing demand as peptide therapeutics like Wegovy gain attention. In particular, "peptide metabolites," which are produced when natural proteins are broken down in the body, are drawing attention as multifunctional drug candidate substances.
A research team led by Hyung-seop Han, principal researcher at the Center for Biomaterials Research, Daegun Song, senior researcher at the Natural Product Systems Biology Research Center, and O-seung Kwon, research specialist at the Doping Control Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), said on the 17th that they developed a therapeutic substance derived from natural-product peptides that has both antiviral and tissue-regenerating functions.
The researchers confirmed that a peptide metabolite produced when the protein thymosin β4 present in our bodies is degraded is a functional substance capable of inducing both antiviral action and tissue regeneration. This metabolite inhibited the activity of a major protease of the COVID-19 virus by more than 85%. In experiments using human vascular cells, it also showed effects such as cell growth, wound healing, angiogenesis and removal of harmful oxygen species.
This study demonstrated that a single peptide can perform both antiviral treatment and tissue regeneration, raising expectations that it could overcome the limitations of existing protein therapeutics. The research team plans to conduct studies toward practical application of customized therapies and biomaterials for tissue regeneration using peptide metabolites.
Principal researcher Hyung-seop Han said, "This study is significant as an example showing that protein metabolites can be used not only as new drugs but also as bio-materials for tissue regeneration, confirming the potential for expansion into a variety of biological application fields in the future."
The results of this study were published in the international journal Bioactive Materials in March.
References
Bioactive Materials(2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioactmat.2025.02.008