Compositions and methods for inhibiting human immunodeficiency virus infection by down-regulating human cellular genes

Abstract

The present invention relates to the identification of several human genes as cellular targets for the design of therapeutic agents for suppressing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. These genes encode intracellular products which appear to be necessary for HIV replication, as evidenced by an inhibition of HIV infection in cells in which the expression of these genes is down-regulated. Therefore, inhibitors of these genes and their encoded products may be used as therapeutic agents for the treatment and/or prevention of HIV infection. In addition, the invention also relates to methods for identifying additional cellular genes as therapeutic targets for suppressing HIV infection, and methods of using such cellular genes and their encoded products in screening assays for selecting additional inhibitors of HIV.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.