Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026
Peptide-based Identification of Functional Motifs and their Binding Partners
Published on: June 30, 2013
The D-amino acid peptide D3 reduces amyloid fibril boosted HIV-1 infectivity
Marek Widera, Antonia Nicole Klein, Yeliz Cinar
1Institut für Virologie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. aileen.funke@hs-coburg.de.
Background:
Amyloid fibrils such as Semen-Derived Enhancer of Viral Infection (SEVI) or amyloid-β-peptide (Aβ) enhance HIV-1 attachment and entry. Inhibitors destroying or converting those fibrils into non-amyloidogenic aggregates effectively reduce viral infectivity. Thus, they seem to be suitable as therapeutic drugs expanding the current HIV-intervening repertoire of antiretroviral compounds.
Findings:
In this study, we demonstrate that the small D-amino acid peptide D3, which was investigated for therapeutic studies on Alzheimer's disease (AD), significantly reduces both SEVI and Aβ fibril boosted infectivity of HIV-1.
Conclusions:
Since amyloids could play an important role in the progression of AIDS dementia complex (ADC), the treatment of HIV-1 infected individuals with D3, that inhibits Aβ fibril formation and converts preformed Aβ fibrils into non-amyloidogenic and non-fibrillar aggregates, may reduce the vulnerability of the central nervous system of HIV patients for HIV associated neurological disorders.
