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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Peptide-based Identification of Functional Motifs and their Binding Partners
Published on: June 30, 2013
Inhibition of membrane-active peptides by fatty acid-peptide hybrids
D E Rivett1, D Hewish, A Kirkpatrick
1CSIRO Molecular Science, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
Abstract:
Nine fatty acid-peptide hybrid molecules were constructed using the general formula CH3(CH2)nCO-Phe Asp Cys-amide and tested for their ability to inhibit cell lysis induced by the membrane-active peptide melittin. All of these molecules, where n = 4-14, inhibited the action of melittin to some extent, but the longer carbon chains were most effective. Several potential inhibitors were also constructed with conservative substitutions in the peptide portion of the molecule. All were effective to varying degrees. We concluded that in the hexapeptide inhibitor published by Blondelle et al. (1993), the role of the first three residues is only to provide hydrophobic interaction with the melittin and has no particular amino acid sequence specificity. Some of these inhibitors were found to inhibit the lytic activity of a melittin analogue which had only superficial sequence similarity to melittin and also a truncated form of melittin, indicating the generality of the action of the inhibitors.
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