Anti-HIV type 1 Tat Monoclonal antibody, Clone 2E3G12

Efficient delivery of pharmaceutically active molecules across cellular membranes using cell penetrating peptides (CPPs), such as the cationic human immunodeficiency virus-1 trans-acting activator of transcription peptide (HIV-1 TAT), continues to attract scientific attention in drug design and disease treatment. Experimental results show that the TAT peptide is not only capable of directly penetrating the biological membrane in a passive manner, but also forming physical, membrane-spanning pores that may facilitate transport. Experiments further show that anionic lipids accelerate peptide permeation within a range of mole percentage composition. In this work, we explored the structures and translocation thermodynamics of the cationic TAT peptide across a series of DPPC/DPPS model membranes with the presence of 0-30 mol% cholesterol. We computed the potentials of the mean force by using umbrella sampling molecular dynamics simulations coupled to the Martini coarse-grained force field. We systematically investigated the roles of cholesterol and anionic lipids (membrane surface charge) in TAT peptide translocation. In qualitative agreement with experimental findings, the barrier heights were significantly reduced in the presence of anionic lipids. A toroidal hydrophilic pore was strongly suggested by membrane structure analysis. Cholesterol stabilizes the liquid-ordered (Lo) phase of membranes and increases the elastic stiffness of bilayers. Consequently, it hinders transmembrane pore formation and thus modulates solute permeability, since the liquid-ordered phase suppresses reorientation of the lipid molecules on simulation time scales. Though cholesterol contributes marginally to the total free energy associated with peptide permeation, the coordination of cholesterol to the peptide weakens more favorable peptide-lipid interactions. The addition of the anionic lipid DPPS to the neutral DPPC bilayer leads to the emergence and further enhancement of an interfacially stable state of the peptide due to the favorable peptide-anionic lipid interactions. Translocation free energy barriers decrease in lockstep with increasing DPPS composition in the model bilayers simulated. Finally, we investigated the size of hydrophilic pores emerging in our simulations, as well as the qualitative mobility of the peptide on the membrane surface.

Protein transduction domains (PTDs), such as the HIV1-TAT peptide, have been previously used to promote the uptake of proteins into a range of cell types, including stem cells. Here we generated pancreatic transcription factors containing PTD sequences and administered these to endoderm enriched mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells under conditions that were designed to mimic the pattern of expression of these factors in the developing pancreas. The ES cells were first cultured as embryoid bodies and treated with Activin A and Bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) to promote formation of definitive endoderm. Cells were subsequently plated as a monolayer and treated with different combinations of the modified recombinant transcription factors Pdx1 and MafA. The results demonstrate that each transcription factor was efficiently taken up by the cells, where they were localized in the nuclei. RT-qPCR was used to measure the expression levels of pancreatic markers. After the addition of Pdx1 alone for a period of five days, followed by the combination of Pdx1 and TAT-MafA in a second phase, up-regulation of insulin 1, insulin 2, Pdx1, Glut2, Pax4 and Nkx6.1 was observed. As assessed by immunocytochemistry, double positive insulin and Pdx1 cells were detected in the differentiated cultures. Although the pattern of pancreatic markers expression in these cultures was comparable to that of a mouse transformed beta-cell line (MIN6) and human islets, the expression levels of insulin observed in the differentiated ES cell cultures were several orders of magnitude lower. This suggests that, although PTD-TFs may prove useful in studying the role of exogenous TFs in the differentiation of ES cells towards islets and other pancreatic lineages, the amount of insulin generated is well below that required for therapeutically useful cells.