Part:BBa_K3096016

Tat-LK15 - improved Cell penetrating peptide

TAT-LK15 is a short fusion peptide of the cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) Tat and the synthetic LK15 peptide. Adding LK15 to Tat results in improved transport efficiency across the cell membrane. The part has been reported to be able to transport nucleic acids through membranes, which allows for novel transfection protocols. LK15 consists of 15 amino acids, which are all either leucine (L) or lysine (K) residue, resulting in an amphipathic protein.

The improved activity of TAT-LK15 over the Tat was also confirmed by our CPP transport activity prediction tool C3Pred. TAT-LK15 scored significantly than the wildtype Tat. This can partly be explained by the presence of multiple positively charged residues in the LK15 peptide, which have been shown to associated with high transport efficiency by our software tool.

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

• 10
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
• 12
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]
• 21
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
• 23
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
• 25
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]
• 1000
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]

Biology & Usage

Through their penetrating activity, Cell penetrating peptides can be utilised as carriers of small therapeutic macromolecules across membranes, eg. Insulin across rat intestinal cells (Kamei et al.). Since cytotoxic effects, induced by the disintegration of the plasma membrane, have occured, improvement and development of cell penetrating peptides is necessary.

References

1. Saleh, Amer F., et al. "Improved Tat-mediated plasmid DNA transfer by fusion to LK15 peptide." Journal of Controlled Release 143.2 (2010): 233-242.
2. Kamei, Noriyasu, et al. "Usefulness of cell-penetrating peptides to improve intestinal insulin absorption." Journal of Controlled Release 132.1 (2008): 21-25.