Yu-Shi Tian, Norihito Kawashita, Masanori Kameoka and Tatsuya Takagi
The high impact of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome caused by human immunodeficiency virus has represented a significant public health threat in the last four decades. Recently, the development of new antiviral drugs has led to great progress in overcoming this virus. Anti-retroviral therapy coverage has been increasing, even in low-income countries, resulting in an overall decline of HIV/AIDS-related deaths worldwide. Nonetheless, new infections still appear, and the era of clearance of this virus has not yet been reached. Moreover, the resistance of the virus to drugs during treatments remains a serious problem. Therefore, researchers are actively seeking to discover and characterize new molecule(s) that could be suitable for anti-HIV treatment. Cyclophilin A, a host molecular chaperone or folder protein, is suspected to be one such attractive target. We and others are searching for inhibitor(s) of this molecule and investigating its mechanism of action throughout the viral life cycle. In this review, we focus on studies related to cyclophilin A and the candidate inhibitors.
