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Site‐specific Substitutions Eliminate Aggregation Properties of Hemopressin
Author(s) -
Song Benben,
Kibler Patrick D.,
Endsley Aaron N.,
Nayak Surendra K.,
Galande Amit K.,
Jambunathan Kalyani
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
chemical biology and drug design
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.59
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1747-0285
pISSN - 1747-0277
DOI - 10.1111/cbdd.12610
Subject(s) - peptide , chemistry , amino acid , amyloid fibril , protein aggregation , biophysics , peptide sequence , amyloid (mycology) , aqueous solution , sequence (biology) , fibril , biochemistry , combinatorial chemistry , amyloid β , biology , organic chemistry , medicine , disease , pathology , gene , inorganic chemistry
Hemopressin is a naturally occurring and therapeutically relevant peptide with applications in hypertension, pain, addiction, and obesity. We had previously demonstrated that hemopressin converts into amyloid‐like fibrils under aqueous conditions. However, the amino acid residues that modulate the aggregation propensity of hemopressin were not identified. In this study, we designed and synthesized 25 different analogs of hemopressin and analyzed their aggregation properties using the principle of dynamic light scattering. As a result, we were able to identify four conservative changes in the peptide sequence (Val 2 →DVal 2 , Asn 3 →Gln 3 , Leu 7 →Npg 7 , and C‐OH→C‐NH 2 ) that minimize aggregation propensity of hemopressin. The results indicate that hemopressin aggregation is cooperative in nature and involves contribution from multiple amino acids within the peptide chain. The analogs and the corresponding aggregation propensity data reported in this study would be useful for researchers investigating therapeutic properties of hemopressin, which have been hampered due to the tendency of hemopressin to aggregate in aqueous solutions.