Luciferase Time-based, High-throughput Screening Assay for the Discovery of HIV-1 Inhibitors

Abstract

Citation: Lara HH, Garza Trevino EN, De Zamacona ME, Mureyko L, Ixtepan-Turrent L (2014) Luciferase Time-based, High-throughput Screening Assay for the Discovery of HIV-1 Inhibitors. J Hum Virol Retrovirol 1(3): 00017. Therapies based on inhibiting HIV replication initially targeted only the viral enzymes, which are exclusively expressed by the virus and are not present in the uninfected human host cell. HIV encodes three enzymes required for replication: HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, HIV-integrase and HIV-protease [9]. Therefore, anti-HIV ARVs are classified into six different classes based mainly on their molecular mechanism of action: Entry/Fusion inhibitors (FIs), Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), Non-Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), Protease inhibitors (PIs), Integrase inhibitors (INIs), and Maturation inhibitors (MIs) [10]. Deciphering the molecular target of an anti-HIV drug is considered an important tool for understanding the mechanism of action of the virus itself and gives us new insight into the various therapeutic approaches for clinical treatment, discovery of new ARVs and refinement of ARV drug design and development. There have been several studies on the mechanism of action of newly discovered HIV inhibitors, including virus-based assays, structure-based drug design, receptor pharmacology, biochemical screening, time-of-addition experiments and bioluminescence assays [11-13].