Recombinant HIV type 1 gp41 Antigen, Coating [ENV126-J]

The deep hydrophobic pocket of HIV-1 gp41 has been considered a drug target, but short-peptides targeting this site usually lack potent antiviral activity. By applying the M-T hook structure, we previously generated highly potent short-peptide fusion inhibitors that specifically targeted the pocket site, such as MT-SC22EK, HP23L, and LP-11. Here, the crystal structures of HP23L and LP-11 bound to the target mimic peptide N36 demonstrated the critical intrahelical and interhelical interactions, especially verifying that the hook-like conformation was finely adopted while themethionine residue was replaced by the oxidation-less prone residue leucine, and that addition of an extra glutamic acid significantly enhanced the binding and inhibitory activities. The structure of HP23L bound to N36 with two mutations (E49K and L57R) revealed the critical residues and motifs mediating drug resistance and provided new insights into the mechanism of action of inhibitors. Therefore, the present data help our understanding for the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of HIV-1 fusion inhibitors and facilitate the development of novel antiviral drugs.

We previously reported a first-generation recombinant DAVEI construct, a dual action virus entry inhibitor composed of cyanovirin-N (CVN) fused to a membrane proximal external region or its derivative peptide Trp3. DAVEI exhibits potent and irreversible inactivation of HIV-1 (human immunodeficiency virus) viruses by dual engagement of gp120 and gp41. However, the promiscuity of CVN to associate with multiple glycosylation sites in gp120 and its multivalency limit current understanding of the molecular arrangement of the DAVEI molecules on trimeric spike. Here, we constructed and investigated the virolytic function of second-generation DAVEI molecules using a simpler lectin, microvirin (MVN). MVN is a monovalent lectin with a single glycan-binding site in gp120, is structurally similar to CVN and exhibits no toxicity or mitogenicity, both of which are liabilities with CVN. We found that, like CVN-DAVEI-L2-3Trp (peptide sequence DKWASLWNW), MVN-DAVEI2-3Trp exploits a similar mechanism of action for inducing HIV-1 lytic inactivation, but by more selective gp120 glycan engagement. By sequence redesign, we significantly increased the potency of MVN-DAVEI2-3Trp protein. Unlike CVN-DAVEI2-3Trp, re-engineered MVN-DAVEI2-3Trp(Q81K/M83R) virolytic activity and its interaction with gp120 were both competed by 2G12 antibody. That the lectin domain in DAVEIs can utilize MVN without loss of virolytic function argues that restricted HIV-1 Env (envelope glycoprotein) glycan engagement is sufficient for virolysis. It also shows that DAVEI lectin multivalent binding with gp120 is not required for virolysis. MVN-DAVEI2-3Trp(Q81K/M83R) provides an improved tool to elucidate productive molecular arrangements of Env-DAVEI enabling virolysis and also opens the way to form DAVEI fusions made up of gp120-binding small molecules linked to Trp3 peptide.