Anti-Rev aptamers

Another study also investigated the effect of various anti-Rev aptamers in vivo, but from a somewhat different angle. Symensma et al. substituted the wild-type Rev-binding element for the Rev-binding aptamer, and tested whether the synthetic Rev-binding RNA would still be able to substitute the biological function of the wild-type, i.e.Ao facilitate Rev-dependent mRNA transport [72]. Various classes of anti-HIV-1-Rev-binding aptamers were assayed One class closely resembled the wild-type sequence, whereas the... 

Some RNA aptamers that were isolated in vitro have also been expressed in vivo to study their biological function within the context of a living pro- or eucaryotic cell. Among them is an aptamer which binds to the reverse transcriptase (Rev) protein of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) [42,43,70],This anti-HIV-l-Rev aptamer was cloned into an expression cassette based on the U6 snRNA promoter, in which aptamer transcripts are protected against nuclease degradation to some extent. Transient expression in the nucleus of cultured cells led to 107-109 full-length aptamer transcripts per cell. When anti-HIV-l-Rev aptamer-expressing cells were co-transfected with the HIV-1 provirus, viral replication was efficiently inhibited in these cells, as shown by an assay in which the production of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase was measured [71],... 

These proteins are involved in the transcription of the HIV genome and in the nuclear export of incompletely spliced viral mRNA. In situ expression of anti-Rev and anti-TAR RNA aptamers inhibited the retroviral replication by more than 70% in cultured cells (Good et al., 1997). 

Konopka, K., Duzgunes, N., Rossi, J. and Lee, N.S. (1998) Receptor ligand-facilitated cationic liposome delivery of anti-HIV-1 Rev-binding aptamer and ribozyme DNAs. J. Drug Target., 5, 247-259. 

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