IS HIV HISTORY? A CAMBRIDGE STUDY REVEALS HOW A MUTANT FORM OF PROTEIN INHIBITS THE INFECTION OF HIV

 

Cambridge University scientists have made an important discovery: a mutant protein can inhibit the infection and spread of the HIV virus.  

The discovery could be crucial in the development of a new drug that could stop HIV in its tracks. 

The great advantage in this discovery is that unlike other current treatments for HIV, which do not cure, but simply keep the infection at bay, is that the mutant protein does not cause the immune system to weaken, nor it allows the infection to take hold. 

35 million people are infected worldwide, with some of the highest numbers in Sub-Sarahan Africa.  However, infections have been reduced by 33% in just the last decade due to great improvements in drug therapy and availability. 

The mutant protein discovered was named ADAP, or Adhesion and Degranulation-promoting Adaptor Protein.   The protein's existence is not new to science: its effect on regulating T-cell adhesion had already been discovered.  However, this new study demonstrated the protein's action to block the HIV virus' ability to adhere to the human T-cell, a process which enables it to replicate and kill its host. 

This discovery highlights how the mutant protein ADAP is able to inhibit infection by both barring adhesion to T-cells, and replication of the virus when the infected T-cell come in contact with another, which is the fundamental way the HIV virus is able to infect and replicate in the human body. 

Source ; MNT / 10.3.13