25 Oct
Researchers from Heinrich Pette Institute of Experimental Virology and Immunology at Hamburg produced a special enzyme able to “cure†HIV-infected human lymphocytes in laboratory assays. The study, published in Science constitutes a potential advancement in the struggle against HIV-AIDS. So far, experts assumed that the infection with the Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was irreversible because the virus inserts its DNA into the host cell’s genome.
Extracting viral DNA from infected cells
The strategy is based on the existence of a special kind of enzymes known as ‘recombinases’, which have the ability to ‘cut and paste’ DNA strands at a specific point. This sort of ‘molecular scissors’ recognizes a specific DNA sequence, cuts and then re-joins the free ends of the DNA molecule.
A key to the work is that the viral genome is a linear DNA molecule with identical ends. The sequence at these ends is always the same and it is known by the biologists. The researchers modified a natural recombinase called ‘Cre’ in such a way that it became able to specifically recognize the ends of the HIV molecule. In this way, the new recombinase called ‘Tre’ can ’see’ where in the lymphocyte genome a virus is inserted and cut it out. The extracted fragment is then subject to degradation by the cellular machinery.
But in spite of these encouraging results, developing an effective therapy for HIV from this method is complicated. To be able to cure a person, first stem cells from the infected patient should be extracted and ‘cured’ in the laboratory. Then the treated cells are reinjected in the body and hope they will regenerate the immune system. Although it is not possible to get rid of all the viruses, it could be possible to achieve a significant reduction in the viral load until the infection process is controlled.
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how was their research?is there any new development in their research?… are their able to discover new cure for hiv/aids patients?…
i hope u will reply to my comment pls send it back to my email … jophaxcute18@yahoo.com…
thanks and God bless…
July 15th, 2008 at 7:50 am