Featured Technology
David Kabat, PhD
Antiviral Drug Discovery for AIDS: The HIV-1 Vif Protein
Despite remarkable medical advances, the incidence of HIV infections continues to rise throughout the world. The majority of current HIV therapies target HIV reverse transcriptase or protease, but viral resistance and toxicity have created a need for more potent and safer therapies against different viral targets.
Virion infectivity factor (Vif) is a regulatory protein produced by lentiviruses (HIV-1, HIV-2, SIV, FIV and others). Vif targets the human DNA-editing enzyme, APOBEC3G, a host defense factor which inhibits viral replication. Vif binds to APOBEC3G and prevents APOBEC3G from functioning properly in host defense. Therefore, inhibition of Vif-mediated degradation of APOBEC3G is an important new avenue for anti-HIV drug development. New therapeutic agents could inhibit Vif's function, prevent the interaction (binding) of Vif to APOBEC3G, interfere with Vif's effect APOBEC3G mRNA translation, interfere with Vif's intracellular localization of APOBEC3G, interfere with Vif production by the virus, or interfere with the targeting of Vif-associated APOBEC3G to a proteasome.
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