The Effectiveness of Monomeric Griffithsin in HIV Prevention and its Relationship with Dimeric Griffithsin

Griffithsin is a dimeric protein from red algae, which potently prevents HIV-1 infection by binding onto gp 120. The structure of Griffithsin is a dimer and whether its monomer binds to gp 120 and inhibits HIV is important to understanding how the dimeric Griffithsin interacts with the HIV. If the monomeric Griffithsin does not inhibit HIV as well as dimeric Griffithsin, then a characteristic of dimeric Griffithsin should prevent HIV from entering the cell. Some possible characteristics which may make dimeric Griffithsin a more potent inhibitor than monomeric Griffithsin could be the size of the dimeric Griffithsin, the orientation of the active sites, or the number of active sites on the dimeric Griffithsin. Therefore our goal is to make a monomer of Griffithsin and compare it to the dimer. We are using molecular techniques to produce and test a monomeric form of Griffithsin.