Advances in Virology (Jan 2011)

Artificial 64-Residue HIV-1 Enhancer-Binding Peptide Is a Potent Inhibitor of Viral Replication in HIV-1-Infected Cells

  • Mouhssin Oufir,
  • Leslie R. Bisset,
  • Stefan R. K. Hoffmann,
  • Gongda Xue,
  • Stephan Klauser,
  • Bianca Bergamaschi,
  • Alain Gervaix,
  • Jürg Böni,
  • Jörg Schüpbach,
  • Bernd Gutte

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/165871
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2011

Abstract

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An artificial HIV-1 enhancer-binding peptide was extended by nine consecutive arginine residues at the C-terminus and by the nuclear localization signal of SV40 large T antigen at the N-terminus. The resulting synthetic 64-residue peptide was found to bind to the two enhancers of the HIV-1 long terminal repeat, cross the plasma membrane and the nuclear envelope of human cells, and suppress the HIV-1 enhancer-controlled expression of a green fluorescent protein reporter gene. Moreover, HIV-1 replication is inhibited by this peptide in HIV-1-infected CEM-GFP cells as revealed by HIV-1 p24 ELISA and real-time RT-PCR of HIV-1 RNA. Rapid uptake of this intracellular stable and inhibitory peptide into the cells implies that this peptide may have the potential to attenuate HIV-1 replication in vivo.