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Trimeresurus Wagleri, also known as the speckled pit viper, is abundant in south-eastern Asia. Waglerin-1 is one of the two main lethal components of T. Wagleri venom. The primary sequence of Waglerin-1 has been determined as followed: 5 10 15 20 GGKPDLRPCHPPCHYIPRPKPR There is an intramolecular disulfide bond within it. In order to understand the relationship between the structure and biooological activity of Waglerin-1, a series of Wagelerin-1 analogs replaced of the basic residues with Ala were synthesized by the method of automated solid-phase peptide synthesis and air-oxidation. After purification by HPLC, the synthetic Waglerin-1 analogs were characterized by amino acid analysis, ion-electrospray mass spectroscopy, bioassay, and circular dichroism in comparison with synthetic Waglerin- 1. Refer to the results of molecular modeling, it suggests that the effect of the replaced charged residues of His-10 and His-14 to the toxicity of Waglerin-1 is probably located in the loop region confined by the intramolecular disulfide bond. In the future, more Wagerin-1 analogs replaced in loop region can be synthesized for advanced study.
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