Gene therapy is one of several approaches that are being tested in the search for an effective anti HIV treatment. In this strategy

a “resistant” gene would be introduced into target cells

rendering them resistance to the infection of HIV. The HIV 1 Tat protein transactivate HIV 1 gene expression at the transcriptional level by interacting with its response element（TAR） in the long terminal repeat（LTR）. Previously

we have shown that antisense polyTAR Core RNAs can inhibit the transactivation of HIV 1 Tat protein in transiently transfected Jurkat cells. To determine whether this antisense polyTAR Core RNAs could inhibit HIV 1 replication in CD 4+ T cells

we transfected the antisense polyTAR Core gene to MT4 cells and challenged them with HIV 1 SF33 strain. Levels of HIV 1 p24gag antigen were reduced more than 4 fold in cultures of the transduced MT4/LR cells infected with HIV 1SF33 strain. In contrast

cultures of nontransduced MT4 cells and control LX vector transduced MT4/LX cells infected with the same viruses had high levels of HIV 1 p24gag. Our work showed that antisense polyTAR Core RNAs were able to inhibit HIV 1 replication in CD 4+ T cells

and could be used as resistance gene in further studying for gene therapy against HIV 1.