Microbicide vaginal gel prevents SHIV transmission in monkeys

Washington, July 27 : Tulane University researchers claim to have successfully used vaginal gels containing the fusion inhibitory peptide T-1249 to protect rhesus macaque monkeys against vaginal transmission of multiple strains of simian/human HIV (SHIV).

Reporting their study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers hailed the gel's success in protecting macaques from infection by three different strains of SHIV.

"Here we have shown that the vaginal application of gel-formulated T-1249 can protect rhesus macaques from infection by three different SHIV challenge viruses. The protection we observed was dose-dependent, and at the higher concentration, robust, in that all the test animals resisted infection," they said.

Based on their observations, the researchers have come to the conclusion that vaginal microbicide containing fusion inhibitors may still be a potential method for protecting women against infection by HIV type 1 during sexual intercourse.

The researchers caution: "Whether T-1249 could be developed as a practical microbicide will depend on whether it can be successfully formulated at a reasonable cost."

They add that protection against HIV in reality is also very challenging because of the ever-increasing number of different HIV strains in circulation.

"An effective microbicide formulation is, therefore, likely to require the coformulation of more than one entry inhibitor," say the authors.

Fusion inhibitors such as T-1249 operate to inhibit infection by preventing glycoprotein molecules on HIV particles from binding to their receptors on the surface of the immune cell.

The T-1249 peptide is a fusion inhibitor that targets one of the main cellular receptors that HIV uses to infect cells in the mucosal surface.

One of the major advantages of T-1249 over other compounds is that it targets a receptor common to most strains of HIV.

ANI