SLAM (CD150) receptor homologous peptides block the peste des petits ruminants virus entry into B95a cells

Abstract The fusion of haemagglutinin‐neuraminidase (HN) protein of peste des petits ruminant (PPR) virus with signaling lymphocyte activation molecules (SLAM) host cell receptor consequences the virus entry and multiplication inside the host cell. The use of synthetic SLAM homologous peptides (i.e., molecular decoy for HN protein of PPR virus) may check PPR infection at the preliminary stage. Hence, the predicted SLAM homologous peptides using bioinformatics tools were synthesized by solid phase chemistry with standard Merrifield's 9‐fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl (Fmoc) chemistry and were purified by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography. The secondary structures of synthesized peptides were elucidated by circular dichroism spectroscopy. The in vitro interactions of these peptides were studied through indirect Enzyme Linked Immuno Sorbent Assay (ELISA) and visual surface plasmon UV‐visible spectroscopy. The SLAM homologous peptides were able to interact with the peste des petits ruminant virus (PPRV) with varying binding efficiency. The interaction of SLAM homologous peptide with the PPR virus was ascertained by the change in the plasmon color from red wine to purple during visual detection and also by bathochromic shift in absorbance spectra under UV‐visible spectrophotometry. The cytotoxic and anti‐PPRV effect of these peptides were also evaluated in B95a cell line using PPR virus (Sungri/96). The cytotoxic concentration 50 (CC 50 ) value of each peptide was greater than 1000 μg mL −1 . The anti‐PPRV efficiency of SLAM‐22 was relatively high among SLAM homologous peptides, SLAM‐22 at 25 μg mL −1 concentration showed a reduction of more than log 10 3 virus titer by priming of B95a cell line while the use of SLAM‐15 and Muco‐17 at the same concentration dropped virus titer from log 10 4.8 to log 10 2.5 and log 10 3.1 respectively. The concentration of SLAM homologous peptide (25 μg mL −1 ) to exert its anti‐PPRV effect was much less than its CC 50 level (>1000 μg mL −1 ). Therefore, the synthetic SLAM homologous peptides may prove to be better agents to target PPRV.