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Int J Mol Sci. 2018 Feb 14;19(2). pii: E578. doi: 10.3390/ijms19020578.
Charged N-terminus of Influenza Fusion Peptide Facilitates Membrane Fusion.
Worch R1, Dudek A2,3, Krupa J4, Szymaniec A5,6, Setny P7.
Author information
Abstract
Cleavage of hemagglutinin precursor (HA0) by cellular proteases results in the formation of two subunits, HA1 and HA2. The N-terminal fragment of HA2, named a fusion peptide (HAfp), possess a charged, amine N-terminus. It has been shown that the N-terminus of HAfp stabilizes the structure of a helical hairpin observed for a 23-amino acid long peptide (HAfp1-23), whose larger activity than HAfp1-20 has been demonstrated recently. In this paper, we analyze the effect of N-terminal charge on peptide-mediated fusion efficiency and conformation changes at the membrane interface by comparison with the corresponding N-acetylated peptides of 20- and 23-amino acid lengths. We found that higher fusogenic activities of peptides with unmodified amino termini correlates with their ability to form helical hairpin structures oriented perpendicularly to the membrane plane. Molecular dynamics simulations showed that acetylated peptides adopt open and surface-bound conformation more often, which induced less disorder of the phospholipid chains, as compared to species with unmodified amino termini.
KEYWORDS:
artificial membrane systems; fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy; molecular dynamics simulation; peptide termini; peptide-lipid interactions; phospholipids; viral replication
PMID: 29443945 DOI: 10.3390/ijms19020578
Free full text
Charged N-terminus of Influenza Fusion Peptide Facilitates Membrane Fusion.
Worch R1, Dudek A2,3, Krupa J4, Szymaniec A5,6, Setny P7.
Author information
Abstract
Cleavage of hemagglutinin precursor (HA0) by cellular proteases results in the formation of two subunits, HA1 and HA2. The N-terminal fragment of HA2, named a fusion peptide (HAfp), possess a charged, amine N-terminus. It has been shown that the N-terminus of HAfp stabilizes the structure of a helical hairpin observed for a 23-amino acid long peptide (HAfp1-23), whose larger activity than HAfp1-20 has been demonstrated recently. In this paper, we analyze the effect of N-terminal charge on peptide-mediated fusion efficiency and conformation changes at the membrane interface by comparison with the corresponding N-acetylated peptides of 20- and 23-amino acid lengths. We found that higher fusogenic activities of peptides with unmodified amino termini correlates with their ability to form helical hairpin structures oriented perpendicularly to the membrane plane. Molecular dynamics simulations showed that acetylated peptides adopt open and surface-bound conformation more often, which induced less disorder of the phospholipid chains, as compared to species with unmodified amino termini.
KEYWORDS:
artificial membrane systems; fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy; molecular dynamics simulation; peptide termini; peptide-lipid interactions; phospholipids; viral replication
PMID: 29443945 DOI: 10.3390/ijms19020578
Free full text