Design of peptide mimetics of HIV-1 gp120 for prevention and therapy of HIV disease. |
| |
Authors: | N Veljkovic D R Branch R Metlas J Prljic K Vlahovicek S Pongor V Veljkovic |
| |
Affiliation: | Center for Multidisciplinary Research, Institute of Nuclear Sciences VINCA, P.O. Box 522, 11001 Belgrade, Yugoslavia. |
| |
Abstract: | It has been reported that the C-terminus of the second conserved region (C2) of the envelope glycoprotein gp120, encompassing peptide RSANFTDNAKTIIVQLNESVEIN (NTM), is important for infectivity and neutralization of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). It was also demonstrated that human natural anti-vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) antibodies reactive with this gp120 region play an important role in control of HIV disease progression. The bioinformatic analysis based on the time-frequency signal processing revealed non-obvious similarities between NTM and VIP. When tested against a battery of sera from 46 AIDS patients, these peptides, in spite of a significant difference in their primary structures, showed a similar reactivity profiles (r = 0.83). Presented results point out that similarity in the periodical pattern of some physicochemical properties in primary structures of peptides plays a significant role in determination of their immunological crossreactivity. Based on these findings, we propose this bioinformatic criterion be used for design of VIP/NTM peptide mimetics for prevention and treatment of HIV disease. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|
|