Structural Basis of HIV-1 gp41 N-trimer for Designing Bifunctional Peptide-based Fusion Inhibitors

Background: Pathogenic viruses that cause large-scale global or regional outbreaks almost always contain class I fusion proteins. Although the viruses differ in morphology, they all require fusion protein-mediated virus-host cell membranes during the early stages of host cell invasion. Methods: The CHR region and NHR region of fusion proteins can form the 6-HB structure to drive the fusion pore formation between viruses and host cells through metastable interactions. Here, we obtained bifunctional N-peptides with inhibitory activities against two viruses, HIV-1 and MERS-CoV, based on the sequences in the HIV-1 NHR region by constructing N-trimer conformation interacting with the CHR region. Results: This study demonstrates that N-peptides with the coiled triple helix structure obtained from the NHR region in 6-HB are able to target the CHR region and exhibit inhibitory activity against a variety of viruses. Conclusion: Moreover, this strategy can be used to investigate antivirals against unknown viruses for future outbreaks.