Structural Studies of Expressed tIK, Anti-Inflammatory Peptide

Cytokine imbalance is one of the causes of inflammation. Inflammation has yet to be adequately treated without side effects. Therefore, we tried to develop a peptide drug with minimal side effects. Peptide drugs have the advantage of being bio-friendly and bio-specific. In a previous study, three peptides with anti-inflammatory activity were derived based on a truncated IK (tIK) protein, which was a fragment of the IK protein with anti-inflammatory effects. The objective of this study was to optimize the process of expressing, isolating, and purifying the three peptides using bacterial strains and describe the process. Circular dichroism and solution state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy were performed on the final purified high-purity peptide and its secondary structure was also identified.