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Assisted suicide for retroviruses

Nature Biotechnology volume 25, pages 643–644 (2007)Cite this article

Antisense oligonucleotides activate the self-destruction of retroviruses in vivo.

Antisense technology has made little headway as a therapeutic approach to retroviral infection. But this may change if results reported in this issue by Moelling and colleagues1 prove robust and generalizable. The authors demonstrate the therapeutic efficacy of antisense-mediated silencing2 using a classic model of retroviral pathogenesis, infection with the murine spleen focus-forming virus. As the oligonucleotide targets a common feature of the Retroviridae, the strategy should in theory be applicable to any retrovirus.

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Figure 1: Steps in the reverse transcription of retroviral RNA (red) to produce double-stranded DNA (dark and light blue), and the site of interference by oligodeoxynucleotides targeted to the polypurine tract.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Welkin E. Johnson is at the New England Primate Research Center, Harvard Medical School, Southborough, Massachusetts 01772, USA. wjohnson@hms.harvard.edu,

    Welkin E Johnson

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  1. Welkin E Johnson
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Johnson, W. Assisted suicide for retroviruses. Nat Biotechnol 25, 643–644 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0607-643

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0607-643

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