Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a significant public health problem with over 170,000,000 chronic carriers and infection rates increasing worldwide. Chronic HCV infection is one of the leading causes of hepatocellular carcinoma which was estimated to result in ∼10,000 deaths in the United States in the year 2011. Current treatment options for HCV infection are limited to PEG-ylated interferon alpha (IFN-α), the nucleoside ribavirin and the recently approved HCV protease inhibitors telaprevir and boceprevir. Although showing significantly improved efficacy over the previous therapies, treatment with protease inhibitors has been shown to result in the rapid emergence of drug-resistant virus. Here we report the activity of two proteins, originally isolated from natural product extracts, which demonstrate low or sub-nanomolar in vitro activity against both genotype I and genotype II HCV. These proteins inhibit viral infectivity, binding to the HCV envelope glycoproteins E1 and E2 and block viral entry into human hepatocytes. In addition, we demonstrate that the most potent of these agents, the protein griffithsin, is readily bioavailable after subcutaneous injection and shows significant in vivo efficacy in reducing HCV viral titers in a mouse model system with engrafted human hepatocytes. These results indicate that HCV viral entry inhibitors can be an effective component of anti-HCV therapy and that these proteins should be studied further for their therapeutic potential.

The inhibitory PAS (Per/Arnt/Sim) domain protein (IPAS), a dominant negative regulator of hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIFs), is potentially implicated in negative regulation of angiogenesis in such tissues as the avascular cornea of the eye. We have previously shown IPAS mRNA expression is up-regulated in hypoxic tissues, which at least in part involves hypoxiadependent alternative splicing of the transcripts from the IPAS/ HIF-3␣ locus. In the present study, we demonstrate that a hypoxia-driven transcriptional mechanism also plays a role in augmentation of IPAS gene expression. Isolation and analyses of the promoter region flanking to the first exon of IPAS gene revealed a functional hypoxia response element at position ؊834 to ؊799, whereas the sequence upstream of the HIF-3␣ first exon scarcely responded to hypoxic stimuli. A transient transfection experiment demonstrated that HIF-1␣ mediates IPAS promoter activation via the functional hypoxia response element under hypoxic conditions and that a constitutively active form of HIF-1␣ is sufficient for induction of the promoter in normoxic cells. Moreover, chromatin immunoprecipitation and electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed binding of the HIF-1 complex to the element in a hypoxia-dependent manner. Taken together, HIF-1 directly up-regulates IPAS gene expression through a mechanism distinct from RNA splicing, providing a further level of negative feedback gene regulation in adaptive responses to hypoxic/ischemic conditions.

To estimate the epidemic history of HIV-1 CRF01_AE in Vietnam and adjacent Guangxi, China, we determined near full-length nucleotide sequences of CRF01_AE from a total of 33 specimens collected in 1997-1998 from different geographic regions and risk populations in Vietnam. Phylogenetic and Bayesian molecular clock analyses were performed to estimate the date of origin of CRF01_AE lineages. Our study reconstructs the timescale of CRF01_AE expansion in Vietnam and neighboring regions and suggests that the series of CRF01_AE epidemics in Vietnam arose by the sequential introduction of founder strains into new locations and risk groups. CRF01_AE appears to have been present among heterosexuals in South-Vietnam for more than a decade prior to its epidemic spread in the early 1990s. In the late 1980s, the virus spread to IDUs in Southern Vietnam and subsequently in the mid-1990s to IDUs further north. Our results indicate the northward dissemination of CRF01_AE during this time.

We propose rational designing of antiviral short-interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting highly divergent HIV-1. In this study, conserved regions within HIV-1 genomes were identified through an exhaustive computational analysis, and the functionality of siRNAs targeting the highest possible conserved regions was validated. We present several promising antiviral siRNA candidates that effectively inhibited multiple subtypes of HIV-1 by targeting the best conserved regions in pandemic HIV-1 group M strains.

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