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Fashioning FGFs from phage?

Nature Biotechnology volume 17, pages 1157–1158 (1999)Cite this article

The development of orally active, small-molecule mimetics of therapeutically relevant cytokines and growth factors, such as insulin, erythropoetin, and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, is of tremendous pharmaceutical interest. The stability of small-molecule mimetics should make them highly desirable as replacements for more labile therapeutic proteins, whose applications are limited by the need for frequent injections. Fibroblast growth factors (FGF) are currently being investigated in a variety of therapeutic settings and thus are prime candidates for mimicry by small molecules. In this issue, Kavanaugh and colleagues1 at Chiron report the potent mimicry of an FGF by a novel "semi-rationally designed" small protein. Their study has important implications for the development of small-molecule agonists for this class of thereuputic targets.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of the FGF-FGFR complex (after reference 10, figure 6).

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  1. Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA 02139

    Nick Wrighton & David Gearing

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  1. Nick Wrighton
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  2. David Gearing
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Wrighton, N., Gearing, D. Fashioning FGFs from phage?. Nat Biotechnol 17, 1157–1158 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/70696

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