AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, September 20, 2004
Staff Medical Writers

"The human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1)-encoded vif protein is essential for viral replication, virion production, and pathogenicity. HIV-1 vif interacts with the endogenous human APOBEC3G protein (an mRNA editor) in target cells to prevent its virions from encapsidation.

"Although some studies have established targets within the HIV-1 vif gene that are important for its biologic function, it is however important to further screen for effective therapeutic targets in the vif gene that could interfere with the HIV-1 vif-dependent infectivity and pathogenicity," wrote investigators in Japan.

"This report demonstrates that HIV-1 vif antisense RNA fragments constructed within mid-3' region, notably the region spanning nucleic acid positions 5561-5705 (M-3'-AS), significantly inhibited HIV-1 replication in MT-4 and H9-infected cells and reduced the HIV-1 vif mRNA transcripts," said J.S. Barnor and coworkers.

"These data clearly suggest that the above vif fragment, which corresponds to amino acid residues 96-144, could be an effective novel therapeutic target site for gene therapy applications, for the control and management of HIV-1 infection, due to its strong inhibition of HIV-1 replication in cells," the authors concluded.

Barnor and colleagues published their study in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (Intracellular expression of antisense RNA. transcripts complementary to the human immunodeficiency virus type-1 vif gene inhibits viral replication in infected T-lymphoblastoid cells. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2004 Jul 23;320(2):544-50.

For additional information, contact H. Takaku, Department of Life and Environmental Science, 2-17-1 Tsudanuma, Narashino, Chiba 2750016, Japan.

The publisher of the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications can be contacted at: Academic Press Inc., Elsevier Science, 525 B St., Ste. 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495 USA.

The information in this article comes under the major subject areas of AIDS/HIV, Gene Therapy, and Pharmaceutical and Drug Development.

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

Reference

Barnor JS, Miyano-Kurosaki N, et al. "Intracellular expression of antisense RNA transcripts complementary to the human immunodeficiency virus type-1 vif gene inhibits viral replication in infected T-lymphoblastoid cells", Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2004 Jul 23;320(2):544-50.

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