Design, synthesis and biological activity evaluation of peptides as collagen turnover modulators for cosmeceutical purpose.

Since collagen elongated fibrils are abundant in the extracellular matrix, the decrease in collagen turnover is largely responsible of major skin aging signs, such as elasticity loss and wrinkles formation. During the last decades, the life span enlarge arose a widespread interest in “cosmeceuticals”, a hybrid category of products lying on the spectrum between drugs and cosmetics. These products are not tested and approved as drugs, but their appearance in the consumer arena is rather due to theoretical benefits from in vitro studies of active ingredients. Cosmetics based on peptides are a rapidly expanding category in cosmeceuticals [2]: they are widely versatile, as their biological effect and bioavailability can be modulated via conjugation to diverse nonproteic molecules. Coherently with the increasing demand for cosmeceuticals, the main intent of our study is the synthesis and biological activity screening of newly designed peptides targeting collagen turnover, either enhancing its production (A) or interfering at the degradation pathway level (B).