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Specific inhibition of HIV-1 replication by short hairpin RNAs targeting human cyclin T1 without inducing apoptosis.

Li Z, Xiong Y, Peng Y, Pan J, Chen Y, Wu X, Hussain S, Tien P, Guo D

The Modern Virology Research Centre and State Key Laboratory of Virology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, PR China.

RNA interference (RNAi), a sequence-specific RNA degradation mechanism mediated by small interfering RNA (siRNA), can be used not only as a research tool but also as a therapeutic strategy for viral infection. We demonstrated that intracellular expression of short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeting human cyclin T1 (hCycT1), a cellular factor essential for transcription of messenger and genomic RNAs from the long terminal repeat promoter of provirus of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), could effectively suppress the replication of HIV-1. We also showed that downregulation of hCycT1 did not cause apoptotic cell death, therefore, targeting cellular factor hCycT1 by shRNAs may provide an attractive approach for genetic therapy of HIV-1 infection in the future.

Published 6 June 2005 in FEBS Lett, 579(14): 3100-6.
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