Alpha-oligonucleotides: a unique class of modified chimeric nucleic acids.

alpha-Anomeric oligonucleotides are resistant to nucleases and display parallel hybridization with complementary DNA and RNA sequences. Although alpha-DNA/beta-RNA duplexes are not substrates for RNases H, alpha-oligos are able to inhibit translation through a RNase H independent mechanism. alpha-Oligos and their alpha-phosphorothioate analogs (12 mer) targeted against the splice acceptor site of the HIV-TAT gene were potent inhibitors of de novo HIV infection. Furthermore alpha-phosphorothioate and dithioate homo-oligomers exhibit an in vitro, nonsequence-specific, inhibitory effect on HIV reverse transcriptase.