The brown tree snake, an introduced pest species in the central Pacific Islands

Peptidic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) antagonists are the subject of intensive research. We report an NMR and modeling study of LBP-14 (RVQGRWKVRASFFK), a synthetic fragment of the LPS binding protein (LBP). In a mixture with LPS we observed the transferred nuclear Overhauser effect and determined the LPS-bound structure of LBP-14 that was used for docking calculations to LPS. The derived complex was used to design a peptide that displayed more than 50% increase in LPS inhibition in vitro.