title: Inhibition of HIV-1 LTR-driven in vitro transcription by molecular hybrids based on peptide nucleic acids mimicking the NF-kappaB binding site.
abstract: The inhibition of gene transcription mediated by peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) has been described as mainly due to a process that involves strand invasion of target DNA containing homopurine stretches with generation of PNA/DNA/PNA triplexes. Scarce information is available on DNA strand invasion of mixed purine-pyrimidine stretches and theirs possible use as molecules able to interact with transcription factors. With this aim, we compared the effects of DNA/DNA, DNA/PNA or PNA/PNA hybrid molecules mimicking the NF-kappaB binding sites of HIV-1 on LTR-driven in vitro transcription. The results allowed us to conclude that PNA/PNA molecules and DNA/PNA hybrids are capable of inhibiting transcription, like the DNA/DNA. We investigated the mechanisms by which PNA/PNA and DNA/PNA hybrids affect the transcription. The results suggest that DNA/PNA and PNA/PNA molecules inhibit transcription in distinct manner; the inhibitory effects are due to strand invasion in the case of PNA/PNA hybrids and decoy effects on transcription factors belonging the NF-kappaB/Rel family in the case of DNA/PNA hybrids. It is noteworthy that DNA/PNA hybrids are more resistant to nucleases than DNA/DNA hybrids.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Ferrara University, Italy.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mischiati
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Borgatti
authors.forename: Giordana
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Feriotto
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rutigliano
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Breda
authors.forename: Nicoletta
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bianchi
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gambari
mesh_terms: D001665:Binding Sites; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D016325:HIV Long Terminal Repeat / Q000235:genetics*; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D019169:Jurkat Cells; D008956:Models, Chemical; D016328:NF-kappa B / Q000378:metabolism*; D020135:Peptide Nucleic Acids / Q000737:chemistry*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D016328:NF-kappa B; D020135:Peptide Nucleic Acids