Cardiac-Targeting Peptide: From Discovery to Applications

Despite significant strides in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, cardiovascular diseases remain the number one cause of mortality in the United States, with rates climbing at an alarming rate in the developing world. Targeted delivery of therapeutics to the heart has been a lofty goal to achieve with strategies ranging from direct intra-cardiac or intra-pericardial delivery, intra-coronary infusion, to adenoviral, lentiviral, and adeno-associated viral vectors which have preference, if not complete cardio-selectivity, for cardiac tissue. Cell-penetrating peptides (CPP) are 5-30-amino-acid-long peptides that are able to breach cell membrane barriers while carrying cargoes up to several times their size, in an intact functional form. Identified nearly three decades ago, the first of these CPPs came from the HIV coat protein transactivator of transcription. Although a highly efficient CPP, its clinical utility is limited by its robust ability to cross any cell membrane barrier, including crossing the blood-brain barrier and transducing neuronal tissue non-specifically. Several strategies have been utilized to identify cell- or tissue-specific CPPs, one of which is phage display. Using this latter technique, we identified a cardiomyocyte-targeting peptide (CTP) more than a decade ago, a finding that has been corroborated by several independent labs across the world that have utilized CTP for a myriad of different purposes in pre-clinical animal models. The goal of this publication is to provide a comprehensive review of the identification, validation, and application of CTP, and outline its potential in diagnostic and therapeutic applications especially in the field of targeted RNA interference.