Peptide nucleic acids as epigenetic inhibitors of HIV-1

The advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was once perceived to have transformed deadly HIV/AIDS into a treatable, chronic infectious disease. However. mounting evidence now suggests that the prevalence of multi-drug resistant HIV (MDR-HIV) infection is steadily rising among newly infected individuals in the HAART-experienced countries, raising a concern for a future outbreak of MDR-HIV/AIDS. Our global fight against AIDS must include sustained effort to search and discover a new therapeutic modality for HIV infection. Of plausible viral targets explored to date, HIV gene-targeting approach has not yet seen a considerable success in vivo. The pursuit of anti-HIV gene intervention should include the identification of critical gene targets as well as the optimization of biomolecules that can effectively interact with the intended targets. Using unmodified peptide nucleic acids (PNA) as a biomolecular tool, we discovered a potentially critical HIV gene segment within gag-pol encoding gene. Antisense PNA targeting this specific region effectively disrupted a translation of HIV gag-pol mRNA, abolishing the virion production from chronically HIV-infected cells. This exemplifies the possibility that epigenic HIV inhibitors may be developed in the coming years, if emerging novel technologies permit sufficient and stable in vivo delivery of PNA or other similarly effective biomolecules.