Inhibitors of strand transfer that prevent integration and inhibit human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 early replication

The replication of the retrovirus human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is linked to the development of lymphoid malignancies and inflammatory diseases. Data from in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo studies have revealed that no specific treatment can prevent or block HTLV-1 replication and therefore that there is no therapy for the prevention and/or treatment of HTLV-1-associated diseases in infected individuals. HTLV-1 and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) integrases, the enzymes that specifically catalyze the integration of these retroviruses in host cell DNA, share important structural properties, suggesting that compounds that inhibit HIV-1 integration could also inhibit HTLV-1 integration. We developed quantitative assays to test, in vitro and ex vivo, the efficiencies of styrylquinolines and diketo acids, the two main classes of HIV-1 integrase inhibitors. The compounds were tested in vitro in an HTLV-1 strand-transfer reaction and ex vivo by infection of fresh peripheral blood lymphocytes with lethally irradiated HTLV-1-positive cells. In vitro, four styrylquinoline compounds and two diketo acid compounds significantly inhibited HTLV-1 integration in a dose-dependent manner. All compounds active in vitro decreased cell proliferation ex vivo, although at low concentrations; they also dramatically decreased both normalized proviral loads and the number of integration events during experimental ex vivo primary infection. Accordingly, diketo acids and styrylquinolines are the first drugs that produce a specific negative effect on HTLV-1 replication in vitro and ex vivo, suggesting their potential efficiency for the prevention and treatment of HTLV-1-associated diseases.