Compugen Discloses Discovery Method for Drug Candidates That Interfere With Protein Conformations
May 19 2011 - 7:00AM
Business Wire
Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN) announced today the development of
a method to identify novel therapeutic candidates to interfere with
disease associated protein conformations and protein-protein
interactions. This new in silico method relies on the prediction of
hidden conformations of the proteins of interest, which is the
subject of a scientific paper to be published in the journal
Bioinformatics, and is now available online at this link.
Proteins are dynamic entities and can adopt a series of
different conformations. However, some of these conformations are
“hidden”, since they are short-lived or difficult to study
experimentally for other reasons. Since this dynamic property of
proteins is important for their function in healthy and diseased
states, a broad view of a protein’s conformational space is crucial
in many aspects of drug discovery.
Dr. Zurit Levine, Compugen’s V.P. of R&D, explained, “This
new method has been developed to detect protein conformations that
have not been observed experimentally in target proteins. This is
accomplished through in silico prediction based on structures of
other proteins that are remotely related to the target proteins of
interest. Algorithms, enabling the appropriate weighting of the
structural information extracted from the various remote homologous
proteins, are a key component of the new method, resulting in the
prediction of previously unknown conformations for the target
protein. Detecting these hidden conformations extends our ability
to design novel peptide product candidates that interfere with
disease associated conformations (DAC) and protein-protein
interactions (PPI), in addition to providing important new insights
for our protein therapeutic product candidate discovery
activities.”
Dr. Levine continued, "The concepts underlying this method have
been recently incorporated into PEPPER, a previously undisclosed
Compugen software infrastructure. PEPPER, which was designed to
provide a basis for efficient and systematic development of new
product candidate discovery platforms, tools and systems, consists
of software modules for the extraction, analysis and integration of
information from multiple and diverse sources and a number of
distinct, but mutually supporting proprietary therapeutic discovery
methodologies. These methodologies include the previously disclosed
PPI and DAC Blockers Platforms, as well as other disclosed and
undisclosed discovery approaches."
Dr. Levine added, “During the past few years, in addition to
this article being published in Bioinformatics, we have disclosed
several of the science-based methodologies underlying certain of
our therapeutic peptide discovery platforms. A series of six such
peer-reviewed articles, describing various Compugen in silico
methodologies for the design of peptides required for blocking
either disease-associated conformations or protein-protein
interactions, have been published to date. These articles provide
further evidence of the uniqueness, power and scientific leadership
of our predictive discovery capabilities.” (See "Scientific
Publications" under "Research & Discovery" on Compugen’s
website: www.cgen.com)
About Protein Conformations and Protein-Protein
Interactions
Proteins are dynamic entities, which can adopt a series of
different conformations (i.e. three dimensional structures), which
determine their activity and interactions with other proteins or
molecules. Several novel drugs take advantage of this dynamic
nature by binding to a disease-associated protein in its inactive
conformation and blocking it from adopting its active form. The
ability to identify unknown protein conformations and predict
molecules that can interfere with, and thereby block, these
conformations greatly enhances discovery of novel therapeutic
agents.
About Compugen
Compugen is a leading drug and diagnostic discovery company
providing novel product candidates addressing important unmet
therapeutic and diagnostic needs to pharmaceutical, biotech and
diagnostic companies under milestone and royalty bearing or other
revenue sharing agreements. Unlike traditional high throughput
trial and error experimental based discovery, Compugen's discovery
efforts consist of in silico (by computer) hypothesis-driven
product candidate prediction and selection followed by in vitro and
in vivo experimental validation. Compugen's unique in silico
prediction and selection capabilities are based on a broad and
continuously growing infrastructure of proprietary scientific
understandings and predictive platforms, algorithms, machine
learning systems and other computational biology tools. Industry
collaborations may be entered into before product candidate
discovery is undertaken pursuant to "discovery on demand" type
arrangements, or with respect to existing product candidates, can
be initiated prior to, or at the proof of concept stage, or after
selected preclinical activities have been undertaken by Compugen.
In 2002, Compugen established an affiliate, Evogene Ltd.
(www.evogene.com) (TASE:EVGN.TA), to utilize certain of the
Company's in silico predictive discovery capabilities in
agricultural biotechnology. For additional information, please
visit Compugen's corporate website at www.cgen.com.
This press release may contain "forward-looking statements"
within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. These statements include words such as "may", "expects",
"anticipates", "believes", and "intends", and describe opinions
about future events. These forward-looking statements involve known
and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual
results, performance or achievements of Compugen to be materially
different from any future results, performance or achievements
expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some of
these risks are: changes in relationships with collaborators; the
impact of competitive products and technological changes; risks
relating to the development of new products; and the ability to
implement technological improvements. These and other factors are
identified and more fully explained under the heading "Risk
Factors" in Compugen's annual reports filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
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