Inhibition of Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) by Tachyplesin, a Marine Antimicrobial Cell-Penetrating Peptide

Overview

Journal Pharmaceutics

Publisher MDPI

Date 2023 Feb 25

PMID 36839994

Authors

Pankhuri Narula

Sankar Kiruthika

Shruti Chowdhari

Perumal Vivekanandan

Archana Chugh

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We investigate the role of Tachyplesin (Tpl), a marine antimicrobial cell-penetrating peptide, as an anti-HBV agent. Our findings, using confocal microscopy and flow cytometry, demonstrate the internalization of FITC-Tpl in both Huh7 and HepG2 cell lines. Further, our results show that Tpl inhibits the expression of HBV proteins, including hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B 'e' antigen (HBeAg) in cell supernatants of human liver cell lines transfected with 1.3× pHBV. Interestingly Tpl also reduces levels of HBV pre-core RNA and HBV pregenomic RNA, suggesting that Tpl-mediated inhibition occurs at the early stages of HBV replication, including viral transcription. In addition, Tpl led to a significant reduction in levels of hepatitis B virion secretion. In sum, here we demonstrate the potent anti-HBV activity of Tpl at non-cytotoxic concentrations indicating the potential of Tpl to emerge as an effective therapeutic peptide against HBV.

Citing Articles

Effects of Marine Natural Products on Liver Diseases.

Sun Y, Dong Y, Cui X, Guo X, Zhang J, Yu C Mar Drugs. 2024; 22(7).

PMID: 39057397 PMC: 11278422. DOI: 10.3390/md22070288.

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