Inhibition of replication and cytopathic effect of human T cell lymphotropic virus type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus by 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine in vitro.

Human T cell lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV-III)/lymphadenopathy-associated virus is the etiologic agent of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and AIDS-related complex. The effect of 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine (AZT) on the HTLV-III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus infection was quantitatively studied with HTLV type I-carrying MT-4 cells. The AZT compound inhibited HTLV-III-induced cytopathic effect and virus-specific antigen expression in MT-4 cells at concentrations of 5 and 10 microM. In addition, a plaque-forming assay was performed to assess the effect of AZT on virus replication in MT-4 cells freshly infected with HTLV-III and in continuous HTLV-III-producing Molt-4/HTLV-III cells. Results showed that AZT efficiently and effectively inhibited the replication of HTLV-III in infected MT-4 cells. AZT is a strong inhibitor of reverse transcriptase activity of HTLV-III as a triphosphate, to such a degree that even 1.0 pM azido-TTP inhibits 50% of reverse transcriptase activity. However, it did not show any effect in the HTLV-III-producing cell line Molt-4/HTLV-III. Thus, AZT has no effect on virus replication of an already integrated virus. When 5 microM AZT was added to HTLV-III-infected MT-4 within 20 h after infection, a striking suppressive effect was noticed. This concentration was much lower than that which inhibits the growth of MT-4 cells. These results confirm those found in a previous report (H. Mitsuya, K. J. Weinhold, P. S. Furman, H. S. Clair, S. N. Lehrman, R. C. Gallo, D. Bolognesi, D. W. Barry, and S. Broder, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 82:7096-7100, 1985) and suggest that AZT might be used as an experimental antiviral agent for AIDS and AIDS-related complex.