Development of Apo Mimetic Peptides for the Treatment Cardiovascular Disease

National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

We previously showed that the 5A peptide can promote cholesterol efflux by the ABCA1 transporter and reduce atherosclerosis in animal models. The peptide was licensed to KineMed Inc, who received a RAID grant for performing preclinical studies. We have completed several studies looking at the optimum formulation of 5A. We reconstituted the peptide with a variety of phospholipids at various ratios. We found that when 5A is associated with sphingomyelin that it facilitates cholesterol efflux by ABCA1 and has other favorable PK/PD characteristics in mice. Pre-clinical toxicology studies should begin soon and depending a successful outcome of the toxicology studies will be followed by a Phase I clinical trial at the NIH. In addition, we have performed additional structure-function studies on the 5A peptide for producing modified peptides with improved cholesterol efflux and other beneficial properties.