Figure 1. General strategy of the design and the synthesis of N36 and C34 trimeric peptides.

(A) Each trimer is composed of a linker that contains five lysines and four flexibility-enhancing spacer residues O₂Oc at branching points and three copies of the same peptide: C34 or N36. (B) Primary sequences of N36 and C34 peptides corresponding to HR1 and HR2 domains, respectively, of HIV-1 Lai gp41.