UQ boffins shrink C3a into a small molecule

University of Queensland (UQ) researchers have developed a new technique for shrinking large proteins into small molecules, a move that could pave the way for a new class of affordable medicines.

Professor David Fairlie and Dr Robert Reid from the UQ Institute for Molecular Bioscience, along with their team, have discovered a way to shrink down complement protein C3a into a stable small molecule drug.

C3a costs thousands of dollars per milligram to manufacture commercially and degrades in minutes in blood, severely limiting its use in medicine. But the protein has powerful anti-inflammatory properties.

By identifying the key components of the protein and reproducing the functions in a smaller form, the scientists have created a small molecule that retains the properties of C3a while being much cheaper and more stable for drug development.

“A Holy Grail in chemistry has been to find a way to reduce large proteins down to much smaller, simpler and cheaper molecules with the same activities,” Professor Fairlie said.

“We have done exactly that, opening up exciting new avenues for chemists to downsize valuable human proteins and obtain affordable new diagnostics and drugs for the detection and treatment of human diseases.”

The technique could potentially be used to create small molecules based on a much wider range of large proteins.

UQ’s research was funded with the support of the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council. The project has been written up in Nature Communications.