[afro-nets] Scientists discover a key to how AIDS virus attacks the body

[Leela McCullough <leela@healthnet.org>]

Scientists discover a key to how AIDS virus attacks the body
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 From ProCAARE, our discussion group on HIV/AIDS

Wed Feb 23, 5:57 PM ET
Health - AFP

BOSTON, United States (AFP) - US scientists announced the dis-
covery of a key element in the workings of HIV , the virus which
causes AIDS, which could eventually lead to the creation of ef-
fective vaccines against the virus.

The discovery, presented at the 12th annual Conference on Retro-
virus and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, and simultaneously
published in newest issue of the British journal Nature, shows
how HIV mutates its form, in turn provoking changes which permit
it to enter cells.

The study was done at the Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard
Medical School by Stephen Harrison, head of a research team at
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The scientists were able to obtain a three-dimensional image of
the protein gp120, an element of the HIV membrane, before it
metamorphoses itself and attaches to a cell's CD4 receptors.

Once the protein attaches to the receptors, HIV is able to pene-
trate the cell's interior and reproduce, explained one of the
scientists.

The scientists said understanding gp120's form alterations be-
fore the attack on cells could lead to the creation of new vac-
cines to stall HIV infections.

"Knowing how gp120 changes shape is a new route to inhibiting
HIV by using compounds that inhibit the shape change," said Har-
rison.

"The findings also will help us understand why it's so hard to
make an HIV vaccine, and will help us start strategizing about
new approaches to vaccine development."

In the absence of vaccines to prevent infections, the AIDS pan-
demic has struck 39 million people around the world. More than
three million died in 2004.

As with the discovery announced by Harrison, much of the Boston
conference focused on the most promising area of AIDS research,
vaccine treatments that stimulate the body at the cellular level
into defending itself.

The treatments produce antibodies in the blood to neutralize the
virus before it penetrates cells, and stimulate an immune reac-
tion against HIV from inside the cell.

In one promising development last year, scientists discovered a
protein, TRIM5-alpha, which can block HIV from entering the
cell. The protein, whose existence has been long suspected, was
discovered during studies of monkeys who could not be infected
with the AIDS virus.

Yet another protein, the enzyme APODEC, was shown to interrupt
HIV's ability to reproduce genetically once it has entered a
cell, effectively preventing its multiplication.

While such cellular vaccines are promising, real prevention
against an HIV assault requires stimulating the immune system to
produce antibodies capable of hunting and destroying the virus
before it enters cells, said Anthony Fauci, director of the US
National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, part of
the National Institutes of Health . "A safe and effective HIV
vaccine is critical to the control of HIV globally, and is the
most important and difficult scientific challenge facing AIDS
researchers today," said Fauci.

Source:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1507&e=2&u=/afp/20050223/hl_afp/healthaids_050223225745

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