Parasitzing HIV-1 with mobilization competent vectors.
Mobilization competent vectors have been developed in our lab which when introduced into an HIV-1 infected cell can not only suppress the transcriptional activity of HIV-1 by the expression of small RNAs targeted to the viral LTR but also the vector can be packaged by HIV-1 proteins and spread along with HIV-1 to new cells. This vector system offers the distinct advantage of indirectly targeting selective pressures on the virus, i.e. via directed epigenetic modifications at the viral promoter, which has appeared so far to be refractory to the emergence of viral resistance, and also to usurp HIV-1's packaging into new virions by the co-packaging of the vector into the budding virions. Such an approach would prove useful for genetic based therapies to treat individuals already infected with HIV-1 and essentially utilizes natural selection and selective pressures exerted by directed epigenetic changes specifically at the viral LTR to direct HIV-1 into a relatively non-pathogenic state of existence. Thus, the goal of HIV-1 genetic therapy utilizing this system is to symbiotically exist with HIV-1. A radical notion but such will in the end be the result with a virus of such distinct complexity.