A CURIOUS MIND

Over the past decade attempts have been made to construct artificial transcription factor in form of hairpin poly-amide, peptide nucleic acid, peptoid fused to poly amide etc. The C2H2-type zinc finger motif fused with a transcriptional activation or repression domain has been used successfully in mammalian cells as synthetic transcription factor targeting the desired genes. Recently a tripyrrole-peptide (helix) conjugate with specific DNA recognition has been used as artificial transcription factor. Our aim was to synthesize a amino isobutyric acid (Aib) substituted stable helical peptide which could serve as artificial transcription factor and also to construct peptide inhibitor which could be used to regulate the expression of various genes including oncogene. Down regulation of c-fos gene expression was targeted, which is associated with cancer development such as lung and breast cancer. c-Fos is expressed in various signal transduction pathways one of which is MAP kinase pathway..