Development of antioxidant peptides that target the pulmonary arteries for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a multifaceted disease that affects the lung blood vessels and eventually leads to right heart failure. Therapeutic strategies using antioxidants have shown promising efficacy, but have major limitations, in particular, the lack of site-specific distribution of the antioxidants to the lungs and pulmonary arteries. Targeted drug delivery can overcome this major issue. For this study, we will investigate the efficacy of targeting the delivery of antioxidants to the pulmonary arteries as a treatment for PH.

Botanicals and their extracts are widely used for both traditional medicine and pharmaceutical development. Bioactive peptides isolated from natural sources have been shown to have strong antioxidant activities. For this study, we focused on identifying peptides with superoxide dismutase and catalase activity, two important antioxidants that play a role in PH. Within our library of over 300 botanical species, we have identified several peptide extracts with potent antioxidant activity (EC₅₀= 0.14ug – 2.10ug), which will be further developed as a therapeutic targeting the pulmonary arteries.