A novel dual-luciferase assay for anti-HIV drug screening based on the CCR5/CXCR4 promoters

作者:Feng, Long*; Lu, Wuhao; Ma, Yunyun; Guo, Wentao; Wang, Yuanyuan; Sun, Qianqian; Wu, Jianbo; Zhao, Guoqiang*; Zhang, Xiaoli
来源:Journal of Virological Methods, 2018, 256: 17-23.
DOI:10.1016/j.jviromet.2018.02.016

摘要

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a serious worldwide disease caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). C-C chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) and C-X-C chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) are important coreceptors mediating HIV-1 cell entry. Many new anti-HIV drugs are currently in preclinical and clinical trials; however, drug development has proceeded slowly partly because of the lack of a high-throughput system to screen these drugs. Here, we describe the development of a novel dual-luciferase assay using a CCR5/CXCR4 promoter-driven firefly and Renilla luciferase vector (pGL4.10-RLUC-CCR5/CXCR4). Drugs were screened for the ability to regulate CCR5 and CXCR4 promoter activities. The CCR5 and CXCR4 promoters were inserted separately into the recombinant vector and transfected into the acute T lymphocyte leukemia cell line H9. Treatment of stable transfected cells with four traditional Chinese medicine compounds resulted in the dose dependent inhibition of the CXCR4 and CCR5 promoter activities. The dual-luciferase reporter assay provides a rapid and direct method to screen anti-AIDS/HIV drugs.