Prolonged oral creatine administration resulted in remarkable neuroprotection in experimental models of brain stroke. However, because of its polar nature creatine has poor ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB) without specific creatine transporter (CRT). Thus, synthesis of hydrophobic derivatives capable of crossing the BBB by alternative pathway is of great importance for the treatment of acute and chronic neurological diseases including stroke, traumatic brain injury and hereditary CRT deficiency. Here we describe synthesis of new hybrid compounds-creatinyl amino acids, their neuroprotective activity in vivo and stability to degradation in different media. The title compounds were synthesized by guanidinylation of corresponding sarcosyl peptides or direct creatine attachment using isobutyl chloroformate method. Addition of lipophilic counterion (p-toluenesulfonate) ensures efficient creatine dissolution in DMF with simultaneous protection of guanidino group towards intramolecular cyclization. It excludes the application of expensive guanidinylating reagents, permits to simplify synthetic procedure and adapt it to large-scale production. The biological activity of creatinyl amino acids was tested in vivo on ischemic stroke and NaNO(2) -induced hypoxia models. One of the most effective compounds-creatinyl-glycine ethyl ester increases life span of experimental animals more than two times in hypoxia model and has neuroprotective action in brain stroke model when applied both before and after ischemia. These data evidenced that creatinyl amino acids can represent promising candidates for the development of new drugs useful in stroke treatment.

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To improve the efficiency of anticancer drugs due to their delivery to intracellular targets a set of GnRH analogues containing nuclear localization signal (NLS) of SV-40 virus large T-antigen have been synthesized. NLS was attached to the parent molecule via ε-amino group of D-Lysine in position 1 or 6 of peptide sequence using orthogonal protection strategy. The biological activity studies revealed that incorporation of NLS moiety significantly increases cytotoxic activity of palmitoyl-containing GnRH analogues in vitro. The influence of tested peptides on tumor cells does not accompanied by the destruction of cell membrane, as confirmed in experiments with normal fibroblasts, used as a control.

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N-Amidinoproline, a hybrid structure modeling key features of the Arg-Pro sequence, was synthesized. The activation of carboxyl group of free N-amidinoproline was found to result in the formation of a cyclic side product, whose structure was confirmed by ESI MS, 1H NMR, and 13C NMR spectra. The preparation of N-(mesitylenesulfonylamidino)-L-proline using the mesitylenesulfonyl derivative of 2-methylisourea was demonstrated to be accompanied by partial racemization. The target product was synthesized by modification of N-amidinoproline by mesitylenesulfonyl chloride. The possibility of using N-amidinoproline in the N-terminal modification of a peptide chain was shown by the example of synthesis of an analogue of the 95-98 fragment of fibrinogen alpha chain.