Identification of cellular proteins interacting with octaarginine (R8) cell-penetrating peptide by photo-crosslinking

Octaarginine (R8) is a representative cell-penetrating peptide. Lanthionine synthetase component C-like protein 1 (LanCL1) was identified as a potential intracellular target of R8 by using a photo-crosslinking assay that utilized a phenyl-trifluoromethyl diazirine moiety and peptide mass fingerprinting. Increased cellular uptake of R8 by LanCL1-overexpressing cells was observed.