Interaction of E2 and NS3 synthetic peptides of GB virus C/hepatitis G virus with model lipid membranes

Interaction study of three overlapping synthetic peptides belonging to E2 protein of GBV-C/HGV with liposomes as biomembrane models

“…The interaction of small amounts of the E2 synthetic peptides reported in this paper do not alter significantly the packing of hydrocarbon chains in the gel and liquid-crystalline states in DPPC MLVs. On the other hand, as previously obtained for other synthetic peptides [5] the addition of 10% of the E2 peptides clearly diminished the enthalpy of the main transition peak in DMPC vesicles (Figure 2). The effect of E2 peptides on gel/liquid-crystalline transition enthalpy (∆H), and the temperature width at half-height of the heat absorption peak (∆T 1/2 ) for pure DMPG vesicles and at different percentages of E2-peptides is shown in Table 1.…”

Liposome destabilization induced by synthetic lipopeptides corresponding to envelope and non-structural domains of GBV-C/HGV virus. Conformational requirements for leakage

“…Above the gel-to-liquid crystalline transition, however, it was clearly observed that whereas the E2 peptide permeabilized vesicles efficiently, the NS3 peptide hardly exerted any effect on DPPC liposomes [22].…”

“…In our group, the membrane-interacting properties of two epitopes of GBV-C/HGV located, respectively, at the regions (99-118) of the E2 envelope protein and (440-460) of the NS3 non-structural protein and their lipoderivatives were recently studied [21]. We reported a higher affinity binding of parent and lipophilic envelope E2 peptides than non-structural NS3 peptides to model membranes composed of DPPC [16,22]. Lipopeptides have an increased tendency to insert into membranes compared with the same peptide lacking the lipid moiety.…”

“…The selection of the sequences belonging to NS3 and E2 proteins of GBV-C/HGV used in this work was based on the amphipathic character (Kyte and Doolitle hydropathy scale) [28] and the accessibility (Janin scale) [29] as previously described [22]. The lipopeptides of NS3 (440-460): AIAYYRGKDSSIIKDGDLVVC and E2 (99-118):…”

Analysis of the effect of a peptide sequence of the E2 protein (HGV/GBV-C) on the physicochemical properties of zwitterionic and negatively charged bilayers

“…The experimental details of the peptide synthetic procedure are described elsewhere (10). To summarize briefly, the VSWFASTGGRDSKIDVWSLV peptide sequence was obtained by solid-phase peptide synthesis, following a Fmoc/tBu strategy essentially by means of an N-N′-diisopropylcarbodiimide/1-hydroxybenzotriazole activation.…”