HIV/AIDS Drug Development: Fumagillin suppresses HIV-1 infection of macrophages through Vpr activity inhibition

AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, July 17, 2006
Staff Medical Writers

“HIV-1 viral protein R (Vpr) is one of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 encoded proteins that have important roles in viral pathogenesis. However, no clinical drug for AIDS therapy that targets Vpr has been developed,” investigators in Japan report.

According to N. Watanabe and colleagues at RIKEN in Saitama, “Here, we have established a screening system to isolate Vpr inhibitors using budding yeast cells.

“We purified a Vpr inhibitory compound from fungal metabolites and identified it as fumagillin, a chemical already known to be a potent inhibitor of angiogenesis.”

“Fumagillin not only reversed the growth inhibitory activity of Vpr in yeast and human cells, but also inhibited Vpr-dependent viral gene expression upon the infection of human macrophages,” the authors concluded.

Watanabe and colleagues published their study in FEBS Letters (Fumagillin suppresses HIV-1 infection of macrophages through the inhibition of Vpr activity. FEBS Lett. 2006 May 15;580(11):2598-602).

For additional information, contact N. Watanabe, RIKEN, Discovery Research Institute, Antibiot Laboratory, 2-1, Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 3510198, Japan.

The publisher of the journal FEBS Letters can be contacted at: Elsevier Science BV, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Keywords: Saitama, Japan, AIDS, Cell Cycle, HIV/AIDS, Fumagillin, HIV-1 Vpr, Gene Expression Inhibition, Pharmaceutical & Drug Development.

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

Reference

Watanabe N, Nishihara Y, Yamaguchi T, et al., “Fumagillin suppresses HIV-1 infection of macrophages through the inhibition of Vpr activity”, FEBS Lett. 2006 May 15;580(11):2598-602.

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