Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are short peptides that facilitate cellular intake and uptake of molecules ranging from nanosize particles to small chemical compounds to large fragments of DNA. The "cargo" is associated with the peptides either through chemical linkage via covalent bonds or through non-covalent interactions.
CPPs deliver the cargo into cells, commonly through endocytosis, for use in research and medicine. Current use is limited by a lack of cell specificity in CPP-mediated cargo delivery and insufficient understanding of the modes of their uptake. Other delivery mechanisms that have been developed include CellSqueeze and electroporation.
CPPs typically have an amino acid composition that either contains a high relative abundance of positively charged amino acids such as lysine or arginine or has sequences that contain an alternating pattern of polar, charged amino acids and non-polar, hydrophobic amino acids. These two types of structures are referred to as polycationic or amphipathic, respectively. A third class of CPPs are the hydrophobic peptides, containing only apolar residues with low net charge or hydrophobic amino acid groups that are crucial for cellular uptake.
Transactivating transcriptional activator (TAT), from human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1), was the first CPP discovered. In 1988, two laboratories independently found that TAT could be efficiently taken up from the surrounding media by numerous cell types in culture. Since then, the number of known CPPs has expanded considerably, and small molecule synthetic analogues with more effective protein transduction properties have been generated.
A recent discovery found that Papillomaviridae, such as the human papillomavirus, use CPPs to penetrate the intracellular membrane to trigger retrograde trafficking of the viral unit to the nucleus.
Mechanisms of membrane translocation
Cell-penetrating peptides are of different sizes, amino acid sequences, and charges, but all CPPs have the ability to translocate the plasma membrane and facilitate the delivery of various molecular cargoes to the cytoplasm or an organelle. No real consensus explains the translocation mechanism, but candidates can be classified into three mechanisms: direct penetration in the membrane, endocytosis-mediated entry, and translocation through a transitory structure. CPP transduction is an area of ongoing research.
Cell-penetrating peptides (CPP) are able to transport different types of cargo molecules across plasma membrane; thus, they act as molecular delivery vehicles. They have numerous applications in medicine as drug delivery agents in the treatment of different diseases including cancer and virus inhibitors, as well as contrast agents for cell labeling. Examples of the latter include acting as a carrier for GFP, MRI contrast agents, or quantum dots.
Direct penetration
The majority of early research suggested that the translocation of polycationic CPPs across biological membranes occurred via an energy-independent cellular process. It was believed that translocation could progress at 4 °C and most likely involved a direct electrostatic interaction with negatively charged phospholipids. Researchers proposed several models in attempts to elucidate the biophysical mechanism of this energy-independent process. Although CPPs promote direct effects on the biophysical properties of pure membrane systems, the identification of fixation artifacts when using fluorescent labeled probe CPPs caused a reevaluation of CPP-import mechanisms. These studies promoted endocytosis as the translocation pathway. An example of direct penetration has been proposed for TAT. The first step in this proposed model is an interaction with the unfolded fusion protein (TAT) and the membrane through electrostatic interactions, which disrupt the membrane enough to allow the fusion protein to cross the membrane. After internalization, the fusion protein refolds due to the chaperone system. This mechanism was not agreed upon, and other mechanisms involving clathrin-dependent endocytosis have been suggested.
Many more detailed methods of CPP uptake have been proposed including transient pore formation. This mechanism involves strong interactions between cell-penetrating peptides and the phosphate groups on both sides of the lipid bilayer, the insertion of positively charged arginine side-chains that nucleate the formation of a transient pore, followed by the translocation of cell-penetrating peptides by diffusing on the pore surface. This mechanism explains how key ingredients, such as the cooperation among the peptides, the large positive charge, and specifically the guanidinium groups, contribute to the uptake. The proposed mechanism also illustrates the importance of membrane fluctuations. Indeed, mechanisms that involve large fluctuations of the membrane structure, such as transient pores and the insertion of charged amino acid side-chains, may be common and perhaps central to the functions of many membrane protein functions.
Endocytosis-mediated translocation
Endocytosis is another mechanism for cellular internalization. Endocytosis is the process of cellular ingestion by which the plasma membrane folds inward to bring substances into the cell. During this process cells absorb material from the outside of the cell by imbibing it with their cell membrane. The classification of cellular localization using fluorescence or by endocytosis inhibitors is the basis of most examination. However, the procedure used during preparation of these samples creates questionable information regarding endocytosis. Moreover, studies show that cellular entry of penetratin by endocytosis is an energy-dependent process. This process is initiated by polyarginines interacting with heparan sulphates that promote endocytosis. Research has shown that TAT is internalized through a form of endocytosis called macropinocytosis.
Studies have illustrated that endocytosis is involved in the internalization of CPPs, but it has been suggested that different mechanisms could transpire at the same time. This is established by the behavior reported for penetratin and transportan wherein both membrane translocation and endocytosis occur concurrently.
Translocation through the formation of a transitory structure
The third mechanism responsible for the translocation is based on the formation of the inverted micelles. Inverted micelles are aggregates of colloidal surfactants in which the polar groups are concentrated in the interior and the lipophilic groups extend outward into the solvent. According to this model, a penetratin dimer combines with the negatively charged phospholipids, thus generating the formation of an inverted micelle inside of the lipid bilayer. The structure of the inverted micelles permits the peptide to remain in a hydrophilic environment. Nonetheless, this mechanism is still a matter of discussion, because the distribution of the penetratin between the inner and outer membrane is non-symmetric. This non-symmetric distribution produces an electrical field that has been well established. Increasing the amount of peptide on the outer leaflets causes the electric field to reach a critical value that can generate an electroporation-like event.
The last mechanism implied that internalization occurs by peptides that belong to the family of primary amphipathic peptides, MPG and Pep-1. Two similar models have been proposed based on physicochemical studies, consisting of circular dichroism, Fourier transform infrared, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. These models are associated with electrophysiological measurements and investigations that have the ability to mimic model membranes such as monolayer at the air-water interface. The structure giving rise to the pores is the major difference between the proposed MPG and Pep-1 model. In the MPG model, the pore is formed by a b-barrel structure, whereas the Pep-1 is associated with helices. In addition, strong hydrophobic phospholipid-peptide interactions have been discovered in both models. In the two peptide models, the folded parts of the carrier molecule correlate to the hydrophobic domain, although the rest of the molecule remains unstructured.
Cell-penetrating peptide facilitated translocation is a topic of great debate. Evidence has been presented that translocation could use several different pathways for uptake. In addition, the mechanism of translocation can be dependent on whether the peptide is free or attached to cargo. The quantitative uptake of free or CPP connected to cargo can differ greatly but studies have not proven whether this change is a result of translocation efficiency or the difference in translocation pathway. It is probable that the results indicate that several CPP mechanisms are in competition and that several pathways contribute to CPP internalization.
Applications
Nucleic acid delivery Nucleic acid-based macromolecules such as siRNA, antisense oligonucleotide, decoy DNA, and plasmid are promising biological and pharmacological therapeutics in regulation of gene expression. However, unlike other small-molecular drugs, their development and applications are limited by high molecular weight and negative charges, which results in poor uptake efficiency and low cellular traffic. To overcome these problems, several different delivery systems have been developed, including CPP-nucleic acid conjugate, which is a powerful tool.
Formation of CPP-nucleic acid complexes
Most CPP-nucleic acid complexes that have been proposed so far are formed through covalent bonding. A range of CPP-nucleic acid complexes have been synthesized through different chemistries that are either stable or cleavable linkages. And the most widely used method in publication is cleavable disulfide linkages through total stepwise solid-phase synthesis or solution-phase or solid-phase fragment coupling. Some other strategies like stable amide, thiazolidine, oxime and hydrazine linkage have also been developed. However, those covalent linking methods are limited by the concern that the synthetic covalent bond between CPP and nucleic acid may alter the biological activity of the latter. Thus, a new non-covalent strategy requiring no chemical modification with short amphipathic CPPs, like MPG and Pep-1 as carriers has been successfully applied for delivery of cargoes. These non-covalent conjugates are formed through either electrostatic or hydrophobic interactions. With this method, cargoes such as nucleic acids and proteins could be efficiently delivered while maintaining full biological activity.
siRNA delivery Short interfering RNA (siRNA) is a powerful new tool that can interfere with and silence the expression of specific disease gene. To improve cellular uptake of siRNA, CPP strategies have been applied to facilitate the delivery of siRNA into cells through either covalent or non-covalent linkages. In one study, siRNA is covalently linked to transportation and penetration by disulfide-linkage at 5'-end of the sense strands of siRNA to target luciferase or eGFP mRNA reporters. In another study, TAT-siRNA conjugate through a stable thiomaleimide linkage at 3'-end of siRNA was delivered into HeLa cells for eGFP gene silencing.
However, non-covalent strategies appear to be better for siRNA delivery with a more significant biological response. In one study, MPG/siRNA complexes formed through stable non-covalent strategy showed successful introduction of siRNA into cultured cells and induced robust regulation of target mRNA. Furthermore, MPG/siRNA complexes have also been applied for delivery of siRNA in vivo into mouse blastocytes for gene regulation. MPG forms stable complexes with siRNA with a low degradation rate and can be easily functionalized for specific targeting, which are major advantages compared with the covalent CPP technology.
New substrate design for siRNA delivery