The lipid components of pathogen cell membranes have been considered as a poor pharmacological target, due to their universal distribution and apparent homogeneity throughout living organisms. Among the rare exceptions to this view one could mention polyene antibiotics such as amphotericin, or peptide antibiotics such as the polymyxins and the gramicidins. In the last two decades, however, the ...

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major health problem worldwide. Because current anti-HBV treatments are only virostatic, there is an urgent need for development of alternative antiviral approaches. In this context, cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) and cationic polymers, such as chitosan (CS), appear of particular interest as nonviral vectors due to their capacity to facilita...

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are small cationic peptides that cross the cell membrane while carrying macromolecular cargoes. We use solid-state NMR to investigate the structure and lipid interaction of two cationic residues, Arg(10) and Lys(13), in the CPP penetratin. (13)C chemical shifts indicate that Arg(10) adopts a rigid beta-strand conformation in the liquid-crystalline state of anion...

Intracellular MR Contrast Agents based on l-Tat and d-Tat: A Comparative Study Category: Multifunctional probes Ritu Mishra, Joern Engelmann, Wu Su, Josef Pfeuffer, Kamil Ugurbil, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany. Contact e-mail: [email protected] Presentation Number: 544 Noninvasive imaging techniques like MRI possess the prospective to observe mol...

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), which are covalently-linked membrane proteins at the cell surface have recently been suggested to involve in not only endocytic cellular uptake but also non-endocytic direct cell membrane translocation of arginine-rich cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs). However, in-situ comprehensive observation and the quantitative analysis of the direct membrane translocation process...

Extracellular vesicles (EVs, exosomes) are approximately 30- to 200-nm-long vesicles that have received increased attention due to their role in cell-to-cell communication. Although EVs are highly anticipated to be a next-generation intracellular delivery tool because of their pharmaceutical advantages, including non-immunogenicity, their cellular uptake efficacy is low because of the repulsion...

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are capable of introducing a wide range of cargoes into living cells. Descriptions of the internalization process vary from energy-independent cell penetration of membranes to endocytic uptake. To elucidate whether the mechanism of entry of CPP constructs might be influenced by the properties of the cargo, we used time lapse confocal microscopy analysis of livin...

Novel delivery technology using cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) have recently shown their potential and are emerging as promising candidates for an oral protein and peptide delivery systems. As with for the development of any absorption enhancer that is meant to function across an epithelial layer covering a surface highly exposed to pathogens such as the intestines, concern arises about the s...

The therapeutic application of siRNA (short interfering RNA) shows promise as an alternative approach to small-molecule inhibitors for the treatment of human disease. However, the major obstacle to its use has been the difficulty in delivering these large anionic molecules in vivo. A potential approach to solving this problem is the chemical conjugation of siRNA to the cationic CPPs (cell-penet...