Translocation through the plasma membrane is a major limiting step for the cellular delivery of macromolecules. A promising strategy to overcome this problem consists in the chemical conjugation (or fusion) to cell penetrating peptides (CPP) derived from proteins able to cross the plasma membrane. A large number of different cargo molecules such as oligonucleotides, peptides, peptide nucleic acids, proteins or even nanoparticles have been internalized in cells by this strategy. One of these translocating peptides was derived from the HIV-1 Tat protein. The mechanisms by which CPP enter cells remain unknown. Recently, convincing biochemical and genetic findings has established that the full-length Tat protein was internalized in cells via the ubiquitous heparan sulfate (HS) proteoglycans. We demonstrate here that the short Tat CPP is taken up by a route that does not involve the HS proteoglycans.
Different mechanisms for cellular internalization of the HIV-1 Tat-derived cell penetrating peptide and recombinant proteins fused to Tat
Silhol, M.; Tyagi, M.; Giacca, M.; Lebleu, B.; Vives, E.
2002
Eur J Biochem
2002-01 / vol 269 / pages 494-501
Abstract
Tags
Humans; Animals; Amino Acid Sequence; Molecular Sequence Data; Flow Cytometry; HIV-1/*metabolism; Cricetinae; Hela Cells; Gene Products, tat/chemistry/*metabolism; tat Gene Products, Human Immunodeficiency Virus; *Endocytosis; CHO Cells; Glutathione Transferase/metabolism; Recombinant Fusion Proteins/chemistry/*metabolism