Obiettivo Although intensive effort has been made to understand the genetic and immunological aspects of infection by retroviruses, little is known about the molecular mechanism of fusion of the HIV viral envelope with the host cell plasma membrane. The main objective of the Concerted Action (Rational design of antiviral agents inhibiting the fusogenic activity of HIV) of Dr. RUYSSCHAERT group (in collaboration with Dr. V. ERFLE, Germany and Dr. T. SAERMARK, Denmark) is to identify components involved in this fusion process and to synthesize, on a rational basis, agents interacting specifically with these targets, in order to block the fusion and therefore HIV viral infection. They provided evidence that drug inhibiting either the insertion of the N-terminal domain of HIV gp41 or the inverted micelles formation completely abolished the HIV fusogenic activity and consequently the viral infectivity (I. Martin, M.c. Dubois, T. Saermark, R.M. Epand and J.-M. Ruysschaert, FEBS Letters 333, 325-330, 1993; I. Martin, M.C. Dubois, F. Defrise-Quertain, T. Saermark, A. Burny, R. Brasseur and J.-M. Ruysschaert, J. Virology 68, 2, 1139-1148, 1994). Other putative targets have been suggested and one of them is the V3 loop on gp120. Prof. B. PENKE and prof. J. MOLNAR (Hungary) major objective will be to build peptides complementary (in terms of amino acid charges, amino acid volumes, hydrogen bond formation, hydrophobic interaction) to sequences of V3, a loop associated to gp120 which has been shown to be implicated in the host cell-virus fusion. This interaction will be modelized using molecular dynamics calculations (Z. Szekely, A. Perczel, B. Penke and J. Molnár J. Mol. Struct. 286, 165-182, 1993). The most interactive peptides will be synthesized and purified in prof. B. PENKE laboratory Their antifusogenic activity will be tested on model membranes in Dr. RUYSSCHAERT team and their antiviral activity will be examined in Dr. V. ERFLE laboratory (Germany). Programma(i) IC-PECO/COPERNICUS - Scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and European non-member countries, 1992- Argomento(i) 0201 - CEEC participation in BIOMEDICAL AND HEALTH RESEARCH programme Invito a presentare proposte Data not available Meccanismo di finanziamento CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinatore UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES Contributo UE Nessun dato Indirizzo 206,Boulevard du Triomphe 1050 BRUXELLES Belgio Mostra sulla mappa Costo totale Nessun dato Partecipanti (2) Classifica in ordine alfabetico Classifica per Contributo UE Espandi tutto Riduci tutto Medical University Albert Szent-Gyorgy Ungheria Contributo UE Nessun dato Indirizzo 10,Dóm tér 6720 Szeged Mostra sulla mappa Costo totale Nessun dato Medical University Albert Szent-Gyorgy Ungheria Contributo UE Nessun dato Indirizzo 8,Dóm tér 6720 Szeged Mostra sulla mappa Costo totale Nessun dato
