Medium-sized peptides as built in carriers for biologically active compounds

A growing number of oligopeptides of natural and/or synthetic origin have been described and considered as targeting structures for delivery bioactive compounds into various cell types. This review will outline the discovery of peptide sequences and the corresponding mid-sized oligopeptides with membrane translocating properties and also summarize de novo designed structures possessing similar features. Conjugates and chimera constructs derived from these sequences with covalently attached bioactive peptide, epitope, oligonucleotide, PNA, drug, reporter molecule will be reviewed. A brief note will refer to the present understanding on the uptake mechanism at the end of each section. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.