RNAi therapy for HIV infection: principles and practicalities

Abstract

Inside eukaryotic cells, small RNA duplexes, called small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), activate a conserved RNA interference (RNAi) pathway which leads to specific degradation of complementary target mRNAs through base-pairing recognition. As with other viruses, studies have shown that replication of the HIV-1 in cultured cells can be targeted and inhibited by synthetic siRNAs. The relative ease of siRNA design and the versatility of RNAi to target a broad spectrum of mRNAs have led to the promise that drug discovery in the RNAi pathway could be effective against pathogens. This review discusses the current experimental principles that guide the application of RNAi against HIV and describes challenges and limitations that need to be surmounted in order for siRNAs to become practical antiviral drugs. The practical use of RNAi therapy for HIV infection will depend on overcoming several challenges, including the ability to establish long-term expression of siRNA without off-target effects and the capacity to counteract mutant escape viruses.

Table I

Examples of siRNAs directed against human immunodeficiency virus

Fig. 1

Challenges and limitations that need to be surmounted in order for small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to become practical antiviral drugs. Ago2 = argonaute 2; miRNA = microRNA; mRNA = messenger RNA; RISC = RNA-induced silencing complex; RNAi = RNA interference; shRNA = short hairpin RNA; siRNA = small interfering RNA; TRBP = TAR RNA-binding protein.