Synthetic protein analogues in artificial surfactants.

Today, airway instillation of surfactant preparations is a generally used treatment for respiratory distress syndrome in premature infants. Most commercially available surfactants are purified from animal lungs and contain lipids, mainly phospholipids, and about 2% of the hydrophobic surfactant proteins B and C (SP-B and SP-C). During the last half-decade the main structural properties of these proteins have been clarified and this knowledge now makes it possible to design synthetic analogues for future use in artificial surfactants. Pulmonary surfactants, lipid-associated proteins, protein structure, synthetic peptides