Site-specific Isopeptide Bridge Tethering of Chimeric gp41 N-terminal Heptad Repeat Helical Trimers for the Treatment of HIV-1 Infection.

ABSTRACT: Peptides derived from the N-terminal heptad repeat (NHR) of HIV-1 gp41 can be potent inhibitors against viral entry when presented in a nonaggregating trimeric coiled-coil conformation via the introduction of exogenous trimerization motifs and intermolecular disulfide bonds. We recently discovered that crosslinking isopeptide bridges within the de novo helical trimers added exceptional resistance to unfolding. Herein, we attempted to optimize (CCIZN17)3, a representative disulfide bond-stabilized chimeric NHR-trimer, by incorporating site-specific interhelical isopeptide bonds as the redox-sensitive disulfide surrogate. In this process, we systematically examined the effect of isopeptide bond position and molecular sizes of auxiliary trimeric coiled-coil motif and NHR fragments on the anti

SUBMITTER: Wang C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4999862 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature