Simple and rapid determination of the enzyme kinetics of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase and anti-HIV-1 agents by a fluorescence based method

Highly sensitive fluorescence dye, PicoGreen, can detect a small amount of polynucleotide duplex. The DNA/RNA duplex is a reaction product of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (HIV-RT), which demonstrated that the HIV-1 RT kinetics and anti-HIV agent efficiency could be determined rapidly by a fluorometric method using PicoGreen dye. A small amount of dye is enough to test a minimal quantity of substrate to rapidly determine the enzyme kinetic properties Km and Vmax. This method was applied to screen HIV-RT inhibitors. The enzymatic inhibition of 11 dipyridodiazepinone derivative inhibitors was compared. The IC50 of all compounds was determined and it was found that two showed high inhibition efficiency. In addition, this method is applied for screening of many natural agents belonging to diverse sources. The proposed fluorometric method using PicoGreen dye is an easy, rapid, and sensitive detection method to determine HIV-RT activity, monitor enzyme kinetics and perform high-throughput screening of anti-HIV-1 RT agents.