Sulfation of polysaccharides generates potent and selective inhibitors of human immunodeficiency virus infection and replication in vitro.

The inhibitory effects of several polysaccharides, dextran, xylofuranan, and ribofuranan, and their sulfated counterparts on the infectivity and replication of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were examined by using an HTLV-I-carrying cell line, MT-4, in vitro. Dextran sulfate (Mw 34 X 10(3], xylofuranan sulfate, and ribofuranan sulfate completely prevented HIV-induced cytopathic effects (CPE) at concentrations greater than 10 micrograms/ml and dextran sulfate (Mw 7 X 10(3] at concentrations greater than 100 micrograms/ml. However, the non-sulfated compounds did not prevent them at any concentration tested. The anti-HIV effect of these polysaccharides was confirmed by measuring HIV-specific antigen expression in infected MT-4 cells. In cocultures with MOLT-4 and MOLT-4/HIVHTLV-IIIB cells, formation of multinucleated cells was completely inhibited in the presence of 100 micrograms/ml of these sulfated compounds. Dextran sulfate showed 20-30% growth inhibition of uninfected MT-4 cells at 1000 micrograms/ml but dextran sulfate, xylofuranan sulfate, and ribofuranan sulfate showed no effect on sulfated polysaccharides efficiently inhibited the reverse transcriptase activity of avian myeloblastosis virus and HIV.