Discoveries
New picture emerges of natural blocker of human AIDS virus
Research in Old World monkeys is casting light on the behavior of HIV-1.
Why do monkeys, which can develop AIDS when exposed to the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), not contract the condition when exposed to the virus that causes it in humans, HIV-1?
Recent research by scientists led by Dana-Farber’s Joseph Sodroski, MD, and Matthew Stremlau, a Harvard Medical School graduate student, offers an explanation. The investigators found that when HIV-1 infects immune system cells of Old World monkeys, molecules called TRIM5-alphas zero in on the retrovirus’s protein coating and quickly strip it away, causing the molecular material inside to disintegrate. This prevents the retroviral material, RNA, from being converted into DNA and working its way into the cells’ own DNA, where it would take over the cells’ reproduction machinery.
The discovery not only adds to understanding of how Old World monkey immune system cells resist HIV-1infection, it also may help researchers devise ways of using the less-effective human TRIM5- alpha molecule to block the process of AIDS development in people.
