To further explore these trends, strongly binding peptides from the first panning round of Hf-BTB-NH2 were sequenced (see Table ). Interestingly, the sequence VRD was conserved in four of the six most strongly binding cases, with RDL conserved in three out of six cases. The conserved nature of this sequence indicates that multiple amino acids are involved in cooperative binding interactions, rather than individual amino acids acting in isolation. Furthermore, the combination of an anionic carboxylate group adjacent to a cationic arginine group and a hydrophobic valine/leucine group appears to be important for effective binding of the consensus peptide sequence.