1. Highly potent, fully recombinant anti-HIV chemokines: Reengineering a low-cost microbicide
- Author
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Gabriel Kuenzi, Irène Rossitto-Borlat, Astrid Melotti, Jean-Michel Escola, Donald E. Mosier, Guy Gorochov, Oliver Hartley, Hubert François Gaertner, Robin E. Offord, Fabrice Cerini, Rebecca Nedellec, and Janelle R. Salkowitz
- Subjects
Agonist ,Chemokine ,Receptors, CCR5 ,medicine.drug_class ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Leukocytes, Mononuclear/drug effects/virology ,Antiviral Agents/pharmacology ,Biology ,Pharmacology ,HIV/drug effects ,Protein Engineering ,Endocytosis/drug effects ,Antiviral Agents ,law.invention ,Anti-Infective Agents ,law ,Microbicide ,Signal Transduction/drug effects ,Receptors, Virus/metabolism ,medicine ,Potency ,Humans ,ddc:576 ,Recombinant Proteins/pharmacology ,Internalization ,Chemokine CCL5 ,Anti-Infective Agents/economics/pharmacology ,media_common ,Multidisciplinary ,Chemokine CCL5/chemistry ,Receptors, CCR5/metabolism ,virus diseases ,HIV ,Reproducibility of Results ,Biological Sciences ,Endocytosis ,Recombinant Proteins ,Entry inhibitor ,Hela Cells ,Recombinant DNA ,biology.protein ,Leukocytes, Mononuclear ,Receptors, Virus ,Chemokines/pharmacology ,Signal transduction ,Chemokines ,medicine.drug ,HeLa Cells ,Signal Transduction - Abstract
New prevention strategies for use in developing countries are urgently needed to curb the worldwide HIV/AIDS epidemic. The N-terminally modified chemokine PSC-RANTES is a highly potent entry inhibitor against R5-tropic HIV-1 strains, with an inhibitory mechanism involving long-term intracellular sequestration of the HIV coreceptor, CCR5. PSC-RANTES is fully protective when applied topically in a macaque model of vaginal HIV transmission, but it has 2 potential disadvantages related to further development: the requirement for chemical synthesis adds to production costs, and its strong CCR5 agonist activity might induce local inflammation. It would thus be preferable to find a recombinant analogue that retained the high potency of PSC-RANTES but lacked its agonist activity. Using a strategy based on phage display, we set out to discover PSC-RANTES analogs that contain only natural amino acids. We sought molecules that retain the potency and inhibitory mechanism of PSC-RANTES, while trying to reduce CCR5 signaling to as low a level as possible. We identified 3 analogues, all of which exhibit in vitro potency against HIV-1 comparable to that of PSC-RANTES. The first, 6P4-RANTES, resembles PSC-RANTES in that it is a strong agonist that induces prolonged intracellular sequestration of CCR5. The second, 5P12-RANTES, has no detectable G protein-linked signaling activity and does not bring about receptor sequestration. The third, 5P14-RANTES, induces significant levels of CCR5 internalization without detectable G protein-linked signaling activity. These 3 molecules represent promising candidates for further development as topical HIV prevention strategies.
- Published
- 2008