Targeting the HIV Trans‐Activation Responsive Region—Approaches Towards RNA‐Binding Drugs

Sticking to TAR: The development of RNA-binding drugs will open fascinating opportunities for modern pharmacology. Experience in how to find ligands for RNA targets, however, is still limited. Lessons learnt from well-characterized RNA–protein complexes such as tat/TAR, therefore, will significantly contribute to the future development of the field. TAR RNA, the trans-activation responsive region of HIV, and the tat protein form a molecular switch crucial for viral replication. Herein we review the state of research concerning TAR-binding molecules and the techniques used to study RNA–ligand association.