The quantity and quality of HIV-1 gene expression is temporally controlled by a cascade of sequential regulatory interactions. Basal HIV-1 transcription is determined by interaction of cellular regulatory proteins with specific DNA target sequences within the HIV-1 long-terminal repeat. The most notable of these protein:DNA interactions involves NF-kappa B, a transcription factor that plays a p...

Circadian rhythms are regulated at the cellular level by transcriptional feedback loops leading to oscillations in expression of key proteins including CLOCK, BMAL1, PERIOD (PER), and CRYPTOCHROME (CRY). The CLOCK and BMAL1 proteins are members of the bHLH class of transcription factors and form a heterodimer that regulates the expression of the PER and CRY genes. The nuclear receptor REV-ERBα ...

HIV-1 Rev protein directs nuclear export of pre-mRNAs and mRNAs containing its binding site, the Rev response element (RRE). To define how Rev acts, we used conjugates between bovine serum albumin (BSA) and peptides comprising the Rev activation domain (BSA-R). BSA-R inhibited Rev-mediated nuclear RNA export, whereas a mutant activation domain peptide conjugate did not. BSA-R did not affect the...

The Rev protein of HIV-1 regulates the synthesis of partially spliced forms of cytoplasmic viral mRNA by binding to a cis-acting RNA sequence, the Rev response element (RRE). We have investigated the regulation of splicing in vitro and have shown that Rev specifically inhibits splicing of pre-mRNAs containing an RRE by 3- to 4-fold. A synthetic peptide of 17 amino acids containing the RNA-bindi...

The HIV-1 regulatory proteins Rev and Tat are expressed early in the virus life cycle and thus may be important targets for the immune control of HIV-1-infection and for effective vaccines. However, the extent to which these proteins are targeted in natural HIV-1 infection as well as precise epitopes targeted by human cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) remain to be defined. In the present study, 57 ...

The Lentivirus life replication cycle involves the synthesis of viral RNAs. These RNAs are divided in three groups: fully spliced, partially spliced and unspliced mRNAs. As described in HIV-1, the fully spliced viral mRNAs encode regulatory proteins including Tat and Rev whereas the partially spliced viral mRNAs produce enzymatic and structural proteins. The unspliced RNAs are template for geno...

1. Abstract 2. Nucleic acid aptamers 3. Inhibition of HIV-1 enzymatic function 3.1. Reverse Transcriptase. 3.1.1. Anti-RT drugs, side effects and resistance 3.1.2. RNA aptamers in vitro 3.1.3. Anti-RT ssDNA aptamers in vitro 3.1.4. Anti-RT RNA aptamers in cells 3.2. Protease 3.2.1. Protease aptamers 3.3. Integrase 3.3.1. Integrase aptamers in vitro 4. Inhibition of HIV-1 gene expression: transc...