Antiviral peptides

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION While the specification concludes with claims particularly pointing out and specifically claiming the subject matter regarded as forming the present invention, it is believed that the invention will be better understood from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing in which: FIG.
1 is a schematic which shows the initiation of Sindbis virus assembly, including the host cell plasma membrane, the virus nucleocapsid, the cytoplasmic domain of glycoprotein E2, and the application of an antiviral peptide (blocking peptide) in one embodiment of the invention.
The novel antiviral peptides of this invention can be prepared by known solution and solid phase peptide synthesis methods.
In conventional solution phase peptide synthesis, the peptide chain can be prepared by a series of coupling reactions in which the constituent amino acids are added to the growing peptide chain in the desired sequence.
The use of various N-protecting groups, e.
g.
, the carbobenzyloxy group or the t-butyloxycarbonyl group (BOC), various coupling reagents, e.
g.
, dicyclohexylcarbodiimide or carbonyldimidazole, various active esters, e.
g.
, esters of N-hydroxyphthalimide or N-hydroxy-succinimide, and the various cleavage reagents, e.
g.
, trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), HCL in dioxane, boron tris-(trifluoracetate) and cyanogen bromide, and reaction in solution with isolation and purification of intermediates is well-known classical peptide methodology.
The preferred peptide synthesis method follows conventional Merrifield solid-phase procedures.
See Merrifield, J.
Amer.
Chem.
Soc.
85, 2149-54 (1963) and Science 150, 178-85 (1965).
This procedure, though using many of the same chemical reactions and blocking groups of classical peptide synthesis, provides a growing peptide chain anchored by its carboxy terminus to a solid support, usually cross-linked polystyrene, styrenedivinylbenzene copolymer or, preferably, p-methylbenzhydrylamine polymer for synthesizing peptide amides