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MDPI, Pharmaceuticals, 4(15), p. 424, 2022

DOI: 10.3390/ph15040424

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A Protein-Based, Long-Acting HIV-1 Fusion Inhibitor with an Improved Pharmacokinetic Profile

Journal article published in 2022 by Wei Xu, Zhe Cong, Qianyu Duan, Qian Wang ORCID, Shan Su, Rui Wang, Lu Lu ORCID, Jing Xue, Shibo Jiang ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Recently, a series of highly effective peptide- or protein-based HIV fusion inhibitors have been identified. However, due to their short half-life, their clinical application is limited. Therefore, the development of long-acting HIV fusion inhibitors is urgently needed. Here, we designed and constructed a protein-based, long-acting HIV fusion inhibitor, termed FLT (FN3-L35-T1144), consisting of a monobody, FN3, which contains an albumin-binding domain (ABD), a 35-mer linker (L35), and a peptide-based HIV fusion inhibitor, T1144. We found that FLT bound, via its FN3 component, with human serum albumin (HSA) in a reversible manner, thus maintaining the high efficiency of T1144 against infection by both HIV-1 IIIB (X4) and Bal (R5) strains with IC50 of 11.6 nM and 15.3 nM, respectively, and remarkably prolonging the half-life of T1144 (~27 h in SD rats). This approach affords protein-based HIV fusion inhibitors with much longer half-life compared to enfuvirtide, a peptide-based HIV fusion inhibitor approved for use in clinics. Therefore, FLT is a promising candidate as a new protein-based anti-HIV drug with an improved pharmacokinetic profile.