The Hindu : Front Page : “In-built defence system against HIV in human body”

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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
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“In-built defence system against HIV in human body”

New Delhi: Scientists have decoded an in-built defence system of human body against the HIV, giving a new approach to drug development.

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have unravelled the long-sought atomic structure of an enzyme APOBEC-3G which is capable of stopping HIV at the very first stage of its attack on the body.

“We now understand how this enzyme can interact with DNA,” one of the researchers and a professor at USC Xiaojiang Chen said.

“This understanding provides a platform for designing anti-HIV drugs.”

The enzyme remains present in every human cell and can stop the progression of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) when retrovirus transcribes its RNA into viral DNA. But the HIV has evolved ways to deceive this defence enzyme and infect the human body. HIV encodes a protein called “Vif” also known as “virulence factor” that blocks the functioning of the enzyme.

Once blocked, RNA of the virus successfully transcribes in viral DNA which is essential for infecting and producing many more HIV viruses in the body. — PTI

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