Co-lethality studied as an asset against viral drug escape: the HIV protease case.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Co-lethality, or synthetic lethality is the documented genetic situation where two, separately non-lethal mutations, become lethal when combined in one genome. Each mutation is called a "synthetic lethal" (SL) or a co-lethal. Like invariant positions, SL sets (SL linked couples) are choice targets for drug design against fast-escaping RNA viruses: mutational viral escape by loss of affinity to the drug may induce (synthetic) lethality.

Results

From an amino acid sequence alignment of the HIV protease, we detected the potential SL couples, potential SL sets, and invariant positions. From the 3D structure of the same protein we focused on the ones that were close to each other and accessible on the protein surface, to possibly bind putative drugs. We aligned 24,155

SUBMITTER: Brouillet S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2898770 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature