Highly active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART) targets less than a third of the proteins
produced during HIV-1 infection. Testing the effectiveness of an anti-retroviral drug requires
assays specific for the individual target that take into account its mechanism of action. Most
HIV-1 proteins need to undergo dimerization in order to become functional in the viral life cycle. Historically, it has been difficult to visualize and quantify changes in a protein-protein interaction, which has left this characteristic of proteins unexplored as potential antiviral targets. In this study, a bimolecular fluorescence complementation based screening assay is developed that can quantify a change in dimerization, using the HIV-1 accessory protein Vpr as a proof of concept.
Results demonstrated that bimolecular fluorescence complementation of Vpr could be competed off in a dose-dependent manner using untagged, full length Vpr as a competitor molecule. The change in signal intensity was measured quantitatively through flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy in a high content screening assay. High content imaging was used to screen a library of peptides and a library of small molecules for an effect on Vpr dimerization. None of the Vpr peptides were shown to have an effect; however, one of the small molecules was shown to interfere with Vpr dimerization in a dose-dependent manner.
Statement of Public Health relevance: Dimerization is a unique property of many HIV-1 viral proteins and is necessary to complete the viral life cycle, thus it has been identified as a potential drug target. By developing an assay that screens for inhibition of HIV-1 protein dimerization, high throughput screening can be performed to detect inhibitors of a new target in HIV-1 replication. Small molecules identified using this screening method could be developed into a novel anti-retroviral drug.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04042011-225511 |
| Date | 29 June 2011 |
| Creators | Zych, Courtney |
| Contributors | Velpandi Ayyavoo, Yuan Pu Di, Tianyi Wang |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04042011-225511/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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