Joy Kong explains how certain peptides cross cell membranes and the blood-brain barrier, then target specific tissues like the liver and bind to DNA. The video ends with the unanswered question of how peptides know where to go.
How did these peptide come in contact with that DNA in liver cell?
They pass through all cellular membranes, including the blood brain barrier. They will pass through those membranes, and kind of like a salmon that goes back to its original spawning, they know to go, in this case, if it's a liver peptide, they know to go to the liver cells, and they can then penetrate and they cleave onto the DNA.
Well, that's remarkable because we think of peptides as these inert, you know, like they are chemical structure. How do they know? How do they sense where to go? Do we have an idea of how that happens?
No, we really don't. We don't know why the liver peptides taken from the liver of a young calf is able to dock just with the liver in a human being.
