Selection-based discovery of macrocyclic peptides for the next generation therapeutics

Naturally occurring macrocyclic peptides represent a unique class of compounds that exhibit various biological activities ranging from antibiotics to immunosuppressant. Although the discovery of such macrocyclic peptides had relied on their isolation from living organisms, recent advances in ribosomal peptide synthesis and in display techniques made it possible to use artificially generated macrocyclic peptide libraries for selection of ligands for biologically relevant proteins. In this review, we discuss the technologies and their applications for the discovery of peptide ligands.