Sequence-specific recognition of the HIV-1 long terminal repeat by distamycin: a DNAase I footprinting study

Pharmacological modulation of the interaction between transcription factors and target DNA sequences of cellular and viral genes could have important effects in the experimental therapy of a large variety of human pathologies. For instance, alteration of the DNA/protein interaction might be among the molecular mechanisms of action of DNA-binding drugs, leading to an inhibition of the expression of genes involved in the control of in vitro and in vivo growth of neoplastic cells and virus DNA replication. Natural oligopeptides, such as distamycin, are powerful inhibitors of the interaction between nuclear factors and target DNA sequences and, therefore, have been proposed as compounds retaining antibiotic, antineoplastic and antiviral properties. In this study we performed DNAase I footprinting analysis using a PCR product mimicking a region of the long terminal repeat (LTR) of the human immunodeficiency type 1 (HIV-1) retrovirus. The data obtained suggest that distamycin binds to different regions of the HIV-1 LTR depending on the DNA sequence. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays using both crude nuclear extracts from the Jurkat T-lymphoid cell line and the recombinant proteins transcription factor IID and Sp1 suggest that distamycin differentially inhibits the interaction of these two proteins with their specific DNA target sequences, in good agreement with the results obtained by DNAase I footprinting analysis.