Figure 3
The specificity of peptide inhibitors of Envelope-mediated membrane fusion is limited to the parental virus. HeLa cells expressing HTLV-1 (A) or BLV (B) envelope were used as effector cells and co-cultured with untransfected HeLa cells. Cells were incubated in the presence of the peptides Pcr-400, PBLV-391, Pcr-400 L/A a non-functional derivative of Pcr-400 [20], or the control HIV C helix mimetic peptide C34 [51]. (C) Syncytia formation between BLV infected FLK cells and non-infected HeLa cells. Syncytia were counted in 10 low-power light microscope fields. Data points show the mean ± SD of triplicate assays.