Bacteriophage display and discovery of peptide leads for drug development

Phage display makes large-peptide diversity libraries readily attainable for identifying novel peptide ligands for receptors and other protein or non-protein targets. This technology kindles enthusiasm for the idea that large and protein-protein interaction surfaces (epitopes) can be distilled down to small pharmacophores. These may be accessible to organic scaffolding, yielding new orally active drugs that might otherwise have taken greater time and effort to be discovered through chemical-library screening. This review, though not comprehensive with respect to the explosive volume of phage display work over the last few years, focuses on recent developments in phage-displayed peptide technology.