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Query: UMLS:C0021051 (immunodeficiency)
71,517 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Efficient transduction of inhibitory genes is a critical requirement in the development of a gene therapy strategy against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). Commonly used systems based on retrovirus-mediated gene delivery are characterized by low efficiency gene transfer into the target cell. Genes were transduced in the absence of cell selection into 60-90% of human CD4+ cells by using a novel technique that allows high efficiency gene transfer mediated by adenoviruses coupled with DNA-polylysine complexes. Protection of these cells against HIV-1 acute infection was evaluated by transducing them with three different inhibitory genes which interfere with HIV-1 replication at separate levels (polymeric Tat activation response element [TAR] decoy, dominant-negative mutant of the gag gene and antisense sequences of the gag gene) and subsequent challenging with HIV-1. The polymeric TAR decoy inhibited HIV-1 replication over 95%. Both the dominant-negative mutant and the antisense sequence of the gag gene were less potent inhibitors than the polymeric-TAR decoy. Combinations of either polymeric-TAR with dominant-negative mutant or antisense of the gag gene synergistically enhanced the inhibitory effects of the single genes. These data suggest that the combination of a highly efficient transduction technique with effective HIV-1 inhibitory genes confers rapid protection against HIV-1 acute infection in vitro.
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PMID:Rapid protection against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) replication mediated by high efficiency non-retroviral delivery of genes interfering with HIV-1 tat and gag. 758 56

Towards gene therapy for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infections, we tested the potency of several antiviral constructs in transient HIV-1 production assays. Whereas little effect was obtained with antisense- and TAR decoy-constructs, we measured efficient inhibition of HIV-1 mRNA translation and virion production in the presence of HIV-1 leader-containing transcripts. The infectivity of these virions was also reduced by this sense inhibitor RNA. These results suggest that leader-encoded functions, like the dimer-linkage structure, can be used to specifically inhibit HIV expression in trans.
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PMID:Inhibition of human immunodeficiency virus expression by sense transcripts encoding the retroviral leader RNA. 760 11

The TAR element is a viral regulatory element extending from +1 to +60 in the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) long terminal repeat, which is critical for activation by the transactivator protein Tat. Jurkat cell lines chronically infected with viruses containing HIV-1 TAR element mutations are extremely defective for both gene expression and replication. We previously demonstrated that viruses containing mutations of the TAR RNA stem, bulge, or loop structures have 200- to 5,000-fold-reduced levels of gene expression compared with lymphoid cells harboring wild-type virus. In this study, we characterized several Jurkat cell lines infected with TAR element mutant viruses which spontaneously produced culture supernatants with wild-type-like levels of reverse transcriptase activity. These viral supernatants were used to infect Jurkat cells, and following PCR amplification of the viral long terminal repeats, their DNA sequences were analyzed. This analysis demonstrated that revertant viruses isolated from these cell lines retained the original TAR mutations but also contained additional compensatory mutations within TAR. In gel retardation analysis, recombinant Tat protein bound to higher levels to in vitro-transcribed revertant TAR RNAs than the original TAR RNA mutants. Both the original and revertant TAR elements were inserted into both chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter and HIV-1 proviral constructs and assayed following transfection of Jurkat cells. Constructs containing revertant TAR element mutations were capable of strong activation by Tat in contrast to constructs containing the original TAR mutations. Analysis of the secondary structure of TAR RNA sequences suggested that TAR RNA structures which differed from that of wild-type TAR were still capable of strong activation in response to Tat. These results further define critical sequences in TAR RNA that are required for tat activation. In addition, since TAR structures with lower free energy that preserve the loop and bulge structures may be favored over fully formed TAR RNA with higher stable free energy, these results implicate nascent RNA rather than the fully formed TAR RNA structure as the target for tat activation.
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PMID:Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 TAR element revertant viruses define RNA structures required for efficient viral gene expression and replication. 760 59

Human herpesvirus 6 strain U1102 (HHV-6A) was shown to contain a 1,473-bp functional transformation suppressor gene (ts). ts exhibited 24% identity and 51% similarity to adeno-associated virus type 2 Rep68/78. Like adeno-associated virus type 2 Rep68/78, HHV-6A ts suppressed H-ras transformation of NIH 3T3 cells. Suppression of H-ras transformation was eliminated by translation termination linker mutation at amino acid 25, 125, or 245. These data indicated the importance of the C-terminal portion of the ts protein. H-ras transformation was suppressed by ts only when H-ras was expressed by its endogenous H-ras promoter and not when it was expressed by the heterologous murine osteosarcoma virus long terminal repeat (LTR). Furthermore, ts suppressed chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) activity when the CAT gene was expressed from the H-ras promoter but not the murine osteosarcoma virus LTR promoter. Taken together, the data showed that ts suppressed H-ras transformation at the level of the H-ras promoter. To further identify the interaction of ts with transcriptional regulatory elements, the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) LTR was used. This promoter was selected because it has well-defined transcriptional regulatory elements for both basal and activated transcription, because its activity is inhibited by the Rep68/78 gene, and because both HHV-6 and HIV-1 naturally infect CD4+ T cells in vivo and have been shown to infect the same cell in vitro. ts suppressed expression from both wild-type and upstream mutant HIV-1 LTR-CAT constructs. However, downstream HIV-1 TAR mutations reversed ts suppression, indicating that TAR is one of the critical elements involved. The data presented demonstrated that HHV-6A ts functionally suppressed H-ras transformation and HIV-1 LTR expression and thus that it may be useful in future gene therapy.
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PMID:Human herpesvirus 6A ts suppresses both transformation by H-ras and transcription by the H-ras and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 promoters. 760 62

Several lines of evidence suggest that cellular proteins play a role during human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) Tat-mediated trans activation. A recent report from this laboratory has shown that a 140-kDa HeLa nuclear protein (p140) binds specifically to the lower stem region of the Tat response element, TAR RNA. Since HIV-1 trans activation is most efficient in proliferating T cells, we investigated the binding of p140 to TAR RNA in unstimulated and mitogen-activated, G1-phase primary T lymphocytes. TAR RNA/protein-binding activity was low in resting cells but increased significantly within 2 h of activation and remained elevated for at least 48 h. Corresponding increases in p140 protein levels were observed with most but not all donors, suggesting that an additional nuclear factor(s) may be required for efficient binding of this protein to TAR RNA in activated T cells.
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PMID:Interaction of nuclear protein p140 with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 TAR RNA in mitogen-activated primary human T lymphocytes. 760 87

Basic peptides from the carboxy terminus of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) Tat protein bind to the stem-loop region of TAR RNA, spanning a trinucleotide bulge, with high affinity and moderate specificity. Previous studies have demonstrated that TAR RNA contains a specific arginine binding pocket. A series of 24 amino acid Tat-derived peptides with one or two arginines has been evaluated as possible structural models of the wild-type peptide in its interaction with TAR RNA, using gel electrophoretic methods and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. Dissociation rate measurements indicate that these peptides form complexes with TAR RNA that are significantly less stable kinetically than the wild-type complex. Through a combination of dissociation and association rate measurements, we estimate that wild-type Tat peptide and TAR RNA interact with a Kd of about 16 pM. Together with competition experiments, these results confirm that band shift gel titration methods significantly underestimate absolute peptide-RNA binding affinities in the subnanomolar range. Through competition experiments with bulge mutants of TAR RNA, we demonstrate that peptides that form longer lived complexes with wild-type TAR RNA also show greater discrimination over TAR RNA bulge mutants. Difference CD spectra show that the Tat-derived peptides do not induce the same changes in TAR RNA as the wild-type peptide. The difference CD spectrum of argininamide bound to TAR RNA is most similar to that of the wild-type peptide-TAR RNA complex, implying that the differences in CD spectra upon complex formation are mostly due to changes in TAR RNA conformation.
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PMID:Interaction of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 Tat-derived peptides with TAR RNA. 761 30

We have developed an algorithm and a computer program for simultaneously folding homologous RNA sequences. Given an alignment of M homologous sequences of length N, the program performs phylogenetic comparative analysis and predicts a common secondary structure conserved in the sequences. When the structure is not uniquely determined, it infers multiple structures which appear most plausible. This method is superior to energy minimization methods in the sense that it is not sensitive to point mutation of a sequence. It is also superior to usual phylogenetic comparative methods in that it does not require manual scrutiny for covariation or secondary structures. The most plausible 1-5 structures are produced in O(MN2 + N3) time and O(N2) space, which are the same requirements as those of widely used dynamic programs based on energy minimization for folding a single sequence. This is the first algorithm probably practical both in terms of time and space for finding secondary structures of homologous RNA sequences. The algorithm has been implemented in C on a Sun SparcStation, and has been verified by testing on tRNAs, 5S rRNAs, 16S rRNAs, TAR RNAs of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), and RRE RNAs of HIV-1. We have also applied the program to cis-acting packaging sequences of HIV-1, for which no generally accepted structures yet exist, and propose potentially stable structures. Simulation of the program with random sequences with the same base composition and the same degree of similarity as the above sequences shows that structures common to homologous sequences are very unlikely to occur by chance in random sequences.
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PMID:Prediction of common folding structures of homologous RNAs. 768 44

Tat (trans-activator) proteins are early RNA binding proteins regulating lentiviral transcription. These proteins are necessary components in the life cycle of all known lentiviruses, such as the human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) or the equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV). Tat proteins are thus ideal targets for drugs intervening with lentiviral growth. The consensus RNA binding motif (TAR, trans-activation responsive element) of HIV-1 is well characterized. Structural features of the 86 amino acid HIV-1, Zaire 2 isolate (HV1Z2) Tat protein in solution were determined by two dimensional (2D) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods and molecular dynamics (MD) calculations. In general, sequence regions corresponded to structural domains of the protein. It exhibited a hydrophobic core of 16 amino acids and a glutamine-rich domain of 17 amino acids. Part of the NH2 terminus, Val4 to Pro14, was sandwiched between these domains. Two highly flexible domains corresponded to a cysteine-rich and a basic sequence region. The 16 amino acid sequence of the core region is strictly conserved among the known Tat proteins, and the three-dimensional fold of these amino acids of HV1Z2 Tat protein was highly similar to the structure of the corresponding EIAV Tat domain. HV1Z2 Tat protein contained a well defined COOH-terminal Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) loop similar to the recently determined decorsin RGD loop.
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PMID:Structural studies of HIV-1 Tat protein. 772 10

Gene therapy may be of benefit in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-infected individuals by virtue of its ability to inhibit virus replication and prevent viral gene expression. It is not known whether anti-HIV-1 gene therapy strategies based on antisense or transdominant HIV-1 mutant proteins can inhibit the replication and expression of clinical HIV-1 isolates in primary CD4+ T lymphocytes. We therefore transduced CD4+ T lymphocytes from uninfected individuals with retroviral vectors expressing either HIV-1-specific antisense-TAR or antisense-Tat/Rev RNA, transdominant HIV-1 Rev protein, and a combination of antisense-TAR and transdominant Rev. The engineered CD4+ T lymphocytes were then infected with four different clinical HIV-1 isolates. We found that replication of all HIV-1 isolates was inhibited by all the anti-HIV vectors tested. Greater inhibition of HIV-1 was observed with transdominant Rev than with antisense RNA. We hereby demonstrated effective protection by antisense RNA or transdominant mutant proteins against HIV-1 infection in primary CD4+ T lymphocytes using clinical HIV-1 isolates, and this represents an essential step toward clinical anti-HIV-1 gene therapy.
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PMID:Inhibition of clinical human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 isolates in primary CD4+ T lymphocytes by retroviral vectors expressing anti-HIV genes. 776 62

Functional cis-acting regulatory elements in the bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV) long terminal repeat (LTR) were identified by deletion mapping and nuclear protein gel shift analysis using three BIV-infectible cell lines, Cf2Th, BLAC-20, and EREp. Deletion mapping studies indicated that putative NF-kappa B, GRE, AP-4, AP-1, CAAT, and ATF/CRE transcription factor elements positively contribute to LTR-directed gene expression in each cell line both in the presence and absence of the viral transactivator Tat. Sp1 and overlapping AP-3 and retroviral core enhancer elements had variable effects on LTR-directed gene expression depending on cell type and presence or absence of Tat. In addition, a sequence spanning the LTR U5 region and the untranslated viral leader was strongly repressive in all cell lines. Tat transactivated the LTR 25-fold over basal levels in a TAR-dependent manner in Cf2Th cells. In contrast, Tat transactivated the LTR only 2.5-fold over basal levels in EREp and BLAC-20 cells in a TAR-independent manner. Probes for putative NF-kappa B, GRE, Sp1, AP-4, AP-1, overlapping AP-3 and retroviral core enhancer, and juxtaposed CAAT and ATF-CRE elements specifically bound nuclear proteins from these three cell lines and HeLa cells, with the stoichiometry of binding being cell-type dependent. Probes for AP-4, AP-1, and juxtaposed CAAT and ATF/CRE elements exhibited greater protein binding with extracts from virally infected cells than with extracts from uninfected cells, suggesting that viral infection can modulate nuclear factor binding. The present studies indicate that several transcription factor elements in the BIV LTR have functional roles and that cell type can strongly determine the role they play in gene expression.
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PMID:cis-acting regulatory elements in the bovine immunodeficiency virus long terminal repeat. 777 92


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