Peptide modulators of cell migration: Overview, applications and future development

•Abnormal cell migration is involved in a variety of pathologies, including cancer.•We identified and summarized over 470 peptides modulating cell migration.•Compared to approved drugs in the field, these peptides target a variety of drug targets.•Medicinal chemistry provides a toolbox to generate lead candidate peptides with drug-like properties. Cell migration is a key physiological process in the development and homeostasis of multicellular organisms; errors in this complex system can trigger the development of cancer or inflammatory disorders. Therefore, modulating cell migration provides opportunities for drug discovery. Peptides are gaining importance on the global therapeutics market, given their unique properties compared with established small-molecule drugs or biologics. In this review, we identified over 470 peptides modulating cell migration and analyzed their characteristics. Over 95% of these peptides are in the discovery or preclinical stage, because the transition of peptide hits into drug leads often results in a bottleneck in the development process. We summarize chemical strategies in (pre-)clinical development to enhance drug-like properties of bioactive peptides.