Inhibition of moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase by α-anomeric oligonucleotides

Abstract

After parallel hybridization to complementary template RNA, α-anomeric oligonucleotides are not primers for Moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase. As can be expected they are competitors of classical primer oligonucleotides (β-anomeric). They therefore inhibit the RNA dependent DNA polymerase activity of Moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase with either homopolymeric or heteropolymeric substrates. Non complementary α-oligonucleotides display no inhibitory activity. α-Oligonucleotides are therefore potentiel candidates for inhibition of retroviral reverse transcriptases by interference with the primer binding sites.