Conformational behavior of the HAV-VP3(110-121) peptidic sequence and synthetic analogs in membrane environments studied by CD and computational methods.

The present study was undertaken to examine the structural features that may be important to explain the immunogenicity of the (110-121) peptide sequence (FWRGDLVFDFQV) of VP3 capsid protein of hepatitis A virus. A conformational analysis of the preferred conformations by CD and molecular mechanics was carried out. Present results suggest that the interaction with liposomes as biomembrane model induces and stabilizes the amphipathic beta-structure of the peptide. To study the contribution of amino acid replacements at the RGD tripeptide as well as the influence of the peptide chain length on peptide conformation, solid-phase peptide synthesis of several peptide analogs was carried out and the peptide conformation was studied using CD spectroscopy. The results show that the RGD sequence is necessary to induce the beta-structure in the presence of liposomes.