[Endogenous regulatory oligopeptides: their structure, functions and localization]

A number of problems connected with the study of several hundreds of known endogenous peptide molecules have been considered on the basis of data obtained from EROP-Moscow database. A large number of peptide structures can be reduced to a relatively small number of peptide families formed on the basis of homology of amino acid sequence. The ability of most peptides to participate in different regulatory systems of an organism has been demonstrated and the physical and chemical basis for specificity and ambiguity has been discussed. Most problems of structure, function, and localization of endogenous regulatory peptides are similar both in higher and in lower organisms.