Effects and Development of TAT-Tagged PACAP/VIP and Related Peptides

This chapter introduces the construction of cell penetrating peptide TAT (YGRKKRRQRRR) tagged PACAP/VIP and related peptides, the extra activities endowed by TAT sequence, and the potential application of TAT-fused PACAP/VIP. The theoretical analysis indicated that TAT has a similar structure and similar binding site on PAC1 to PACAP(28–38), and TAT actually facilitating the binding and activation of VIP on PAC1. Furthermore, the addition of cell penetrating peptide TAT to PACAP/VIP and related peptides may help increase the activation efficiency of peptides on their intracellular and intranuclear receptors, which may bring extra activities to the peptides. So the TAT-tagged PACAP/VIP and related peptides deserve more detailed research and further development.