gH625: A milestone in understanding the many roles of membranotropic peptides

• Membranotropic peptides and their therapeutic applications
• Membrane fusion, viral inhibition, drug delivery
• gH625, a peptide derived from Herpes simplex virus type I: a case study
• gH625 in vitro and in vivo delivery across the blood–brain barrier

Here, we review the current knowledge about viral derived membranotropic peptides, and we discuss how they may be used for many therapeutic applications. While they have been initially discovered in viral fusion proteins and have been involved in the mechanism of viral entry, it is now clear that their features and their mode of interaction with membrane bilayers can be exploited to design viral inhibitors as well as to favor delivery of cargos across the cell membrane and across the blood–brain barrier. The peptide gH625 has been extensively used for all these purposes and provides a significant contribution to the field. We describe the roles of this sequence in order to close the gap between the many functions that are now emerging for membranotropic peptides.

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