Les Miranda
Les Miranda
Seminar
Thu, Mar. 3, 2016, 4:30pm - 6:00pm
Frick Chemistry Laboratory, Taylor Auditorium
Host: Tom Muir
Thu, Mar. 3, 2016, 4:30pm - 6:00pm
Frick Chemistry Laboratory, Taylor Auditorium
Host: Tom Muir
Engineering potent and selective analogues of GpTx-1, a tarantula venom peptide antagonist of the NaV1.7 sodium channel
NaV1.7 is a voltage-gated sodium ion channel implicated by human genetic evidence as a therapeutic target for the treatment of pain. Screening fractionated venom from the tarantula Grammostola porteri led to the identification of a 34-residue peptide, termed GpTx-1, with potent activity on NaV1.7 (IC50 = 10 nM) and promising selectivity against key NaV subtypes (20× and 1000× over NaV1.4 and NaV1.5, respectively). NMR structural analysis of the chemically synthesized three disulfide peptide was consistent with an inhibitory cystine knot motif. Here we report the results of efforts to efficiently identify potent and selective inhibitors of Nav1.7 from GpTx-1.