Macrocyclic phage display identifies selective protease substrates for FAP-alpha and DPP4 (JACS)

A phage display platform screens large libraries of chemically cyclized peptides carrying an affinity tag and a turn-on fluorescent reporter, so cleavage can be quantified in every selection round, to find selective substrates for a protease of interest. Applied to FAPα and DPP4, it identified substrates selective for each target, with potential as tools for basic biology and fluorescence image-guided surgery (Journal of the American Chemical Society).