AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, May 30, 2005
Staff Medical Writers

"Antiviral high throughput screens remain a viable option for identifying novel target inhibitors. However, few antiviral screens have been reduced to practice on an industrial scale.

"In this study, we describe an HIV-1 dual reporter assay that allows for the simultaneous evaluation of the potential antiviral activities and cytotoxicities of compounds in a high throughput screen (HTS) format," scientists in the United States report.

"We validate the assay with known HIV-1 inhibitors and show that the antiviral and cytotoxic activities of compounds are reproducibly measured under screening conditions.

"In addition, we show that the assay exhibits parameters (e.g., signal-to-background ratios and Z' coefficients) suitable for high throughout screening," wrote W.S. Blair and colleagues at Pfizer Global Research & Development.

"In a pilot screen," continued investigators, "we demonstrate that nonspecific or cytotoxic compounds represent a significant fraction of the hits identified in an antiviral screen and that these false positives are identified and deprioritized by the HIV-1 dual reporter assay at the primary screening step."

The authors concluded, "We propose that the HIV-1 dual reporter assay represents a novel approach to HIV-1 antiviral screening that allows for the effective execution of industrial scale HTS campaigns with significantly greater returns on resource investment when compared to previous methods."

Blair and colleagues published their study in Antiviral Research (A novel HIV-1 antiviral high throughput screening approach for the discovery of HIV-1 inhibitors. Antiviral Res. 2005 Feb;65(2):107-16.

For additional information, contact W.S. Blair, Pfizer Global Research & Development, Department Virology, La Jolla Laboratories, 10777 Science Center Dr., CB1, San Diego, CA 92121, USA.

The publisher's contact information for the journal Antiviral Research is: Elsevier Science BV, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Keywords: San Diego, California, United States, HIV/AIDS, Antiviral Screen, HIV-1 Dual Reporter Assay, Pharmaceutical & Drug Development.

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

Reference

Blair WS, Isaacson J, Li X, et al., A novel HIV-1 antiviral high throughput screening approach for the discovery of HIV-1 inhibitors, Antiviral Res. 2005 Feb;65(2):107-16.

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