1. Evaluation of the fusion inhibitor P3 peptide as a potential microbicide to prevent HIV transmission in women
- Author
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Rafael Diaz, Pilar Garcia Broncano, Carlos Cardoso, Nuno Taveira, Ana Diniz, Maria Rosário Bronze, João Pedro Ferreira, Rui Pinto, João F. Pinto, Helena Barroso, Maria Angel Muñoz-Fernández, Pedro Borrego, and Inês Bártolo
- Subjects
RNA viruses ,0301 basic medicine ,lcsh:Medicine ,Pharmacology ,Pathology and Laboratory Medicine ,Epithelium ,0302 clinical medicine ,Immunodeficiency Viruses ,Animal Cells ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,030212 general & internal medicine ,lcsh:Science ,Immune Response ,Sperm motility ,Antiinfective agent ,Multidisciplinary ,3. Good health ,HIV transmission ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Medical Microbiology ,Viral Pathogens ,Viruses ,Vagina ,Infectious diseases ,Pathogens ,Cellular Types ,Anatomy ,Research Article ,HIV infections ,Sexual transmission ,Immunology ,HIV prevention ,Motility ,Viral diseases ,Microbiology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Signs and Symptoms ,Diagnostic Medicine ,Microbial Control ,Microbicide ,Retroviruses ,medicine ,Women ,Microbial Pathogens ,Inflammation ,Preventive medicine ,business.industry ,Prevention ,Lentivirus ,lcsh:R ,Organisms ,Biology and Life Sciences ,HIV ,Correction ,Cell Biology ,Sperm ,Microbicides ,Microbicides for sexually transmitted diseases ,Germ Cells ,Biological Tissue ,Public and occupational health ,030104 developmental biology ,HIV-1 ,lcsh:Q ,business - Abstract
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Microbicides are an important strategy for preventing the sexual transmission of HIV but, so far, the most advanced tenofovir-based microbicides have had modest efficacy. This has been related to adherence problems and high prevalence of tenofovir-resistant HIV-1 strains. P3 is a new peptide with potent activity against HIV that may be a good microbicide candidate. In this work P3 was formulated in a gel of hydroxyethyl cellulose and its activity, stability and safety profile in Balb/c mice were evaluated. HIV infection was fully blocked by a 1.5% gel containing P3 at the IC90 (366.4 nM) concentration. The antiviral activity did not change at 4°C during 4 months and at 25, 37 and 65°C for 1 week. P3 was stable and fully functional at acidic pH up to 24h, under different concentrations of hydrogen peroxide and in the presence of genital fluids up to 48h. P3 had no antibacterial activity and did not affect sperm motility and vitality. Finally, P3 didn't cause significant alterations in the vaginal epithelium of Balb/c mice at 0.06 (456.8 μM) and 0.2 mg/day (1522.7 μM) doses. These findings indicate that P3 is an excellent candidate for further development as a microbicide gel for the prevention of HIV transmission in women. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
- Published
- 2018