TY - JOUR
T1 - Discovery and Optimization of a Natural HIV-1 Entry Inhibitor Targeting the gp41 Fusion Peptide
AU - Münch, Jan
AU - Ständker, Ludger
AU - Adermann, Knut
AU - Schulz, Axel
AU - Schindler, Michael
AU - Chinnadurai, Raghavan
AU - Pöhlmann, Stefan
AU - Chaipan, Chawaree
AU - Biet, Thorsten
AU - Peters, Thomas
AU - Meyer, Bernd
AU - Wilhelm, Dennis
AU - Lu, Hong
AU - Jing, Weiguo
AU - Jiang, Shibo
AU - Forssmann, Wolf Georg
AU - Kirchhoff, Frank
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Bernhard Fleckenstein and Thomas Mertens for support; Veronica L. Kuhlemann, Ulrich Schubert, and Ingrid Bennett for critical reading of the manuscript; Ilka Uhrland, Jessika Babierowski, Nadja Auer, Nicola Bailer, Daniela Krnavek, and Louise Boyer-Chatenet for their excellent technical assistance; Alexander Steinkasserer and Jutta Eisemann for dendritic cells; Gerhard Rettinger, Herbert Riechelmann, Tilmann Keck, and Kai Johannes Lorenz for providing tonsils; Oliver Hartley for PSC-RANTES; Thomas Grunwald for his RSV studies; Harry John for bioanalytical support of VIRIP peptides; Peter Henklein for the synthesis of some fusion peptides; and Gabrielle Sass for helpful discussion. A number of reagents were obtained through the NIH AIDS Reagent Program. B.M. and T.P. acknowledge the grant (DFG ME1830/1) for the 700 MHz spectrometer. This work was supported by the government of Lower Saxony and by grants from the DFG and the Wilhelm-Sander Foundation and NIH grant 1R01AI067057-01A2 to F.K. W.-G.F. is founder and shareholder and L.S. is shareholder of Pharis Pharma Holding GmbH & Co. KG, the parent company of VIRO Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG. K.A. is Managing Scientific Director of VIRO Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG. The remaining authors have no financial interest related to this work.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2007/4/20
Y1 - 2007/4/20
N2 - A variety of molecules in human blood have been implicated in the inhibition of HIV-1. However, it remained elusive which circulating natural compounds are most effective in controlling viral replication in vivo. To identify natural HIV-1 inhibitors we screened a comprehensive peptide library generated from human hemofiltrate. The most potent fraction contained a 20-residue peptide, designated VIRUS-INHIBITORY PEPTIDE (VIRIP), corresponding to the C-proximal region of α1-antitrypsin, the most abundant circulating serine protease inhibitor. We found that VIRIP inhibits a wide variety of HIV-1 strains including those resistant to current antiretroviral drugs. Further analysis demonstrated that VIRIP blocks HIV-1 entry by interacting with the gp41 fusion peptide and showed that a few amino acid changes increase its antiretroviral potency by two orders of magnitude. Thus, as a highly specific natural inhibitor of the HIV-1 gp41 fusion peptide, VIRIP may lead to the development of another class of antiretroviral drugs.
AB - A variety of molecules in human blood have been implicated in the inhibition of HIV-1. However, it remained elusive which circulating natural compounds are most effective in controlling viral replication in vivo. To identify natural HIV-1 inhibitors we screened a comprehensive peptide library generated from human hemofiltrate. The most potent fraction contained a 20-residue peptide, designated VIRUS-INHIBITORY PEPTIDE (VIRIP), corresponding to the C-proximal region of α1-antitrypsin, the most abundant circulating serine protease inhibitor. We found that VIRIP inhibits a wide variety of HIV-1 strains including those resistant to current antiretroviral drugs. Further analysis demonstrated that VIRIP blocks HIV-1 entry by interacting with the gp41 fusion peptide and showed that a few amino acid changes increase its antiretroviral potency by two orders of magnitude. Thus, as a highly specific natural inhibitor of the HIV-1 gp41 fusion peptide, VIRIP may lead to the development of another class of antiretroviral drugs.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34147137981&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cell.2007.02.042
DO - 10.1016/j.cell.2007.02.042
M3 - Journal articles
C2 - 17448989
AN - SCOPUS:34147137981
SN - 0092-8674
VL - 129
SP - 263
EP - 275
JO - Cell
JF - Cell
IS - 2
ER -