Design of peptide mimetics of HIV-1 gp120 for prevention and therapy of HIV disease

J Pept Res. 2003 Oct;62(4):158-66. doi: 10.1034/j.1399-3011.2003.00081.x.

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.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Drug Design
  • HIV Antibodies / blood
  • HIV Envelope Protein gp120 / chemistry*
  • HIV Envelope Protein gp120 / genetics
  • HIV Infections / blood
  • HIV Infections / drug therapy
  • HIV Infections / prevention & control
  • Humans
  • Molecular Mimicry
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Peptides / chemistry*
  • Peptides / genetics
  • Peptides / immunology*
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide / chemistry
  • Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide / immunology

Substances

  • HIV Antibodies
  • HIV Envelope Protein gp120
  • Peptides
  • Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide