Aminoglycoside antibiotics, neamine and its derivatives as potent inhibitors for the RNA-protein interactions derived from HIV-1 activators.

Neamine derivatives which have an arginine (RN), a pyrene (PCN) and both pyrene and arginine (PRN) have been prepared and their binding toward the RNA fragments derived from HIV-1 activator region, TAR and RRE RNA were examined. Among them, PRN bound either TAR RNA or RRE RNA with equivalent binding affinities as Tat and Rev peptide, respectively.