Cardiac natriuretic peptides - hope or hype?

In recent years, biomedical science has witnessed the emergence of peptide biochemicals as significant topics of research. Some of these peptides are of little potential clinical use, while others, of which cardiac natriureti c peptides are an example, appear to be promising. This particular group of peptides (i.e. ANP, BNP and CNP) shows promising diagnostic as well as the rapeutic potential for various pathological conditions. In the case of acut e myocardial infarction, these peptides have significant diagnostic and pre dictive properties, more so than other biochemicals such as adrenaline, ren in and aldosterone. In addition, ANP is found to have significant benefits over the classical anti-anginal drug glyceryl trinitrate. However, as is th e case with other peptides, applying these benefits clinically may not be e asy because of the structure of the compounds, but various strategies are n ow being applied to solve this problem. These include the use of non-peptid e receptor ligands, inhibitors of ANP metabolism, gene therapy and so on. T he development of drugs in clinical practice, which exploits the natriureti c peptides system therefore seems to be promising, and this article reviews advances in our understanding of these compounds.