Abstract 1125 Quantitative determination of populations of antiparallel beta sheet registries and sheet lengths of the membrane-bound HIV fusion peptide: The very broad distributions may aid immune evasion and chronic infection

Quantitative distributions of populations of a large number (>10) of non-interchanging molecular structures have rarely been determined by experiment. In this study, we report such a determination by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance for the membrane-bound HIV fusion peptide (Fp). The Fp is the ∼25-residue N-terminal domain of the glycoprotein 41 kDa (gp41) fusion subunit of the HIV spike. The Fp likely binds target membrane and has an important role in joining viral and cellular membranes prior to infection.