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Language: English

Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received October 22, 2013
Accepted February 8, 2014

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Molecular interactions of graphene with HIV-Vpr, Nef and Gag proteins: A new approach for treating HIV infections

Navanietha Krishnaraj Rathinam^† Chandran Saravanan¹ Pal Parimal Varalakshmi Perumal¹ Malliga Perumal²

Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, West Bengal, Pin-713209, India ¹School of Biotechnology, Madurai Kamaraj University, Tamil Nadu, Pin-625021, India ²National Facility of Marine Cyanobacteria, Department of Marine Biotechnology, Bharathidasan University, Tamil Nadu, Pin-620024, India

biotecnkr@gmail.com

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, May 2014, 31(5), 744-747(4), 10.1007/s11814-014-0049-8

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Abstract

Graphene draws considerable attention among biomedical researchers because of its unique physical, chemical and biological properties. The wide applications of graphene in the biomedical arena such as diagnostics, drug immobilization and drug delivery were well documented in the literature. However the therapeutic potential of the graphene towards retroviruses and the interactions of the graphene with receptors/proteins are still unexplored. Herein we report the antagonistic molecular interactions of graphene with the three key target proteins of HIV infections namely HIVVpr, Nef and Gag proteins. The docking investigations were performed to find the binding energy of the graphene ligands to the key target proteins of HIV. The high binding affinity of the graphene to these proteins indicates the antagonistic molecular interaction of graphene to the disease targets. The therapeutic potential of graphene was also studied by changing the size and the number of layers of the graphene. The experimental results confirm the good therapeutic potential of the graphene to combat HIV mediated retroviral nfections.

Keywords

Graphene HIV Immobilization Therapeutic Potential Binding Affinity

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