Raltegravir

For quantitative strand transfer assays, donor DNA substrate is formed by annealing HPLC grade oligonucleotides 5′-GACTCACTATAGGGCACGCGTCAAAATTCCATGACA and 5′-ATTGTCATG GAATTTTGACGCGTGCCCTATAGTGAGTC. Reactions (40 μL) contains 0.75 μM PFV IN, 0.75 μM donor DNA, 4 nM (300 ng) supercoiled pGEM9-Zf(−) target DNA, 125 mM NaCl, 5 mM MgSO₄, 4 μM ZnCl₂, 10 mM DTT, 0.8% (vol/vol) DMSO, and 25 mM BisTris propane–HCl, pH 7.45. Raltegravir is added at indicated concentrations. Reactions are initiated by addition of 2 μL PFV IN diluted in 150 mM NaCl, 2 mM DTT, and 10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.4, and stopped after 1 hour at 37 °C by addition of 25 mM EDTA and 0.5% (wt/vol) SDS. Reaction products, deproteinized by digestion with 20 μg proteinase K for 30 minutes at 37 °C followed by ethanol precipitation, are separated in 1.5% agarose gels and visualized by staining with ethidium bromide. Integration products are quantified by quantitative real-time PCR, using Platinum SYBR Green qPCR SuperMix and three primers: 5′-CTACTTACTCTAGCTTCCCGGCAAC, 5′-TTCGCCAGTTAATAGTTTGCGCAAC, and 5′-GACTCACTATAGGGCACGCGT. PCR reactions (20 μL) contained 0.5 μM of each primer and 1 μL diluted integration reaction product. Following a 5-min denaturation step at 95 °C, 35 cycles are carried out in a CFX96 PCR instrument, using 10 seconds denaturation at 95 °C, 30 seconds annealing at 56 °C and 1 minutes extension at 68 °C. Standard curves are generated using serial dilutions of WT PFV IN reaction in the absence of this compound.

Human MT-4 cells

0.0001-1 μM

5 days

Human MT-4 cells are infected for 2 hours with the SIVmac251, HIV-1 (IIIB) and HIV-2 (CDC 77618) stocks at a multiplicity of infection of, approximately, 0.1. Cells are then washed three times in phosphate buffered saline, and suspended at 5 × 10⁵/mL in fresh culture medium (to primary cells 50 units/mL of IL-2 are added) in 96-well plates, in the presence or absence of a range of triplicate raltegravir concentrations (0.0001 μM -1 μM). Untreated infected and mock-infected controls are prepared too, in order to allow comparison of the data derived from the different treatments. Viral cytopathogeniciy in MT-4 cells is quantitated by the methyl tetrazolium (MTT) method (MT-4/MTT assay) when extensive cell death in control virus-infected cell cultures is detectable microscopically as lack of capacity to re-cluster. The capability of MT-4 cells to form clusters after infection. Briefly, clusters are disrupted by pipetting; and, after 2 hours of incubation at 37 °C, the formation of new clusters is assessed by light microscopy (100 × magnification). Cell culture supernatants are collected for HIV-1 p24 and HIV-2/SIVmac251 p27 core antigen measurement by ELISA. In CEMx174-infected cell cultures, which show a propensity to form syncytia induced by the virus envelope glycoproteins, syncytia are counted, in blinded fashion, by light microscopy for each well at 5 days following infection.

Indian Rhesus macaques

50 mg/kg or 100 mg/kg

Oral administration