Jinlin Wang, Peiying Li, Ruijuan Li, Guodong Liang*, Yuheng Ma and Heiya Na Pages 1 - 17 ( 17 )
Background: Pathogenic viruses that cause large-scale global or regional outbreaks almost always contain class I fusion proteins. Although the viruses differ in morphology, they all require fusion protein-mediated virus-host cell membranes during the early stages of host cell invasion.
Method: The CHR region and NHR region of fusion proteins can form the 6-HB structure to drive the fusion pore formation between viruses and host cells through metastable interactions. Here, we obtained bifunctional N-peptides with inhibitory activities against two viruses, HIV-1 and MERS-CoV, based on the sequences in the HIV-1 NHR region by constructing N-trimer conformation interacting with the CHR region.
Result: This study demonstrates that N-peptides with the coiled triple helix structure obtained from the NHR region in 6-HB are able to target the CHR region and exhibit inhibitory activity against a variety of viruses.
Conclusion: Moreover, this strategy can be used to investigate antivirals against unknown viruses for future outbreaks.
HIV-1, MERS-CoV, N-trimer, bifunction, peptide-based fusion inhibitors.