Silencing of HIV-1 gene expression by two types of siRNA expression systems

The RNA interference (RNAi) phenomenon is a recently discovered process in which the introduction of a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) into cells causes the specific degradation of mRNA containing the same sequence. We designed mammalian expression vectors that direct the synthesis of small interfering RNA (siRNA)-like transcripts and examined them for their siRNA-mediated gene interference targeting the env gene (NL4-3:7490-7508, E7490). We constructed siRNA expression vectors for two different strands (sense and antisense; tandem promoter) and for siRNA expressed from the short hairpin RNA (shRNA). The inhibition efficacy on HIV-1 replication differed between these two vectors. Notably, the shRNA vector pU6-env-shRNA inhibited p24 production more effectively than the tandem promoter expression vector pU6-env-siRNA. Furthermore, we examined the ability of lentiviral vectors expressing shRNA to suppress HIV-1 expression in HIV-1-infected SupT1 cells. The env-shRNA (E 7490) almost completely suppressed HIV-1 expression in infected cells for up to 15 days.