TargetHerpes uses four technological platforms, developed by the partner SME’s.

Synthesis of targeted siRNAs –

IBA and PRIMM want to strengthen and expand their capabilities in this field and thus enter this novel and expanding market of biotechnological products. Synthesis will be carried out by IBA´s expert team for RNA synthesis which has a long track record in high quality products. Synthesis will be optimised in regard to scalability of synthesis and purification. In cooperation with BioDec known algorithms for siRNA targeting will be improved for the requested applications.

Synthesis of antagonist and mimetic peptides

PRIMM has a long standing experience in this field. Peptides are used to investigate problems such as the ligand-receptor interactions or to study the three-dimensional structure of specific protein domains. In many cases, it is also possible to design synthetic peptides which display the same or similar biochemical and biological properties as the protein it is derived from. With this respect, one of PRIMM's main focuses will be the design, synthesis and pharmaceutical development of novel bioactive peptides for various therapeutic applications. Computer-assisted molecular modelling - mainly performed by BioDec - will be used to gain structural information and to design novel and innovative peptide molecules, which could display a desired biological activity for further pharmaceutical development. Peptides have a broad range of potential clinical benefits, with applications in some of the most dire and prevalent disease categories. In particular, the synthesis of potential bio-active peptides, representing several segments of the peptide chain of the different glycoproteins involved in herpesvirus infections, will be performed using solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) with standard Fmoc strategy.

Tagging and purification of proteins

Tagging and purification of proteins will mainly be based on the Strep-tag system of IBA. Other IBA technologies such as protein-protein-interaction (ONE-Strep-technology) technology will be used to look for interacting proteins which are involved in virus biology and virus pathobiology (e.g. cross-talk with host proteins). This patented technology for protein expression and purification, as well as proteome interactions makes use of very easy to generate expression vectors introducing the Strep-tag to the protein of interest and is suitable not only for the purification of “tagged” proteins but also use this strategy for protein-protein-interaction (ppi) studies. IBA is planning to expand its ppi-technology and product portfolio to further discriminate false positive results as well as optimise this technology to be used efficiently for membrane proteins. The Streptamer Bead Technology of IBA is a tool to isolate antigen-specific T-cells..

Rational and structure-based design of antagonist and mimetic peptides and si-RNAs.

This part will join the effort of BioDec, PRIMM and IBA. With respect to si-RNAs, BioDec develops a tool that facilitates the design and quality control of siRNAs for RNAi. The program will use a scoring system based on state-of-the-art parameters for siRNA design to evaluate the inhibitory potency of siRNAs. The idea is to create a method that can help to predict regions in a gene that show high silencing capacity based on the base pair composition and siRNAs with high silencing potential for chemical synthesis. In addition, each siRNA arising from the input query will be evaluated for possible cross-silencing activities by performing BLAST searches against the human transcriptome or genome.