A mutant protein that is capable of blocking the infection and transmission of HIV has been discovered by researchers from the University of Cambridge.
The fight against HIV infection continues globally as scientists work toward finding a potential cure to this fatal infection. According to a CDC report, approximately 1.1 million people in the United States are HIV infected and about 18.5 percent of them are not aware of the fact that they are carrying the virus. Approximately 636,000 people with an AIDS diagnosis have died in the U.S. since the epidemic began.
In a breakthrough discovery, researchers from the University of Cambridge found a mutant of an immune cell protein called ADAP (adhesion and degranulation-promoting adaptor protein), which is capable of blocking infections caused by HIV1 and also preventing its transmission.
"One exciting aspect about this new target for HIV intervention is that we should be able to fight HIV without compromising the immune system's ability to battle infections," said Professor Chris Rudd from the Department of Pathology, who led the research.
HIV infections can be fatal because they cause a severe depletion of a type of white blood cells known as T-Cells which play an important role in the body's immune system. When HIV virus bind to the surface receptor CD4 after entering T-cells, an infection is caused which starts the depletion process. HIV virus replicates itself very quickly once inside T-cells and thus transmission of the infection also takes place very rapidly. Very soon, uninfected T-cells also get infected.
ADAP stops this infection and transmission by first slowing down this replication process and then by blocking contact between infected and uninfected T-cells.
"The ADAP mutant is potent in its interference of HIV-1 transmission because it targets simultaneously two critical events, viral replication and the spread of the virus from one T-cell to another," Rudd said in a press statement. "One therapeutic possibility is the reconstitution of infected individuals with T-cells expressing the mutant that are relatively resistant to HIV infection and which can react against the virus."
Recently, researchers from three departments at New Jersey Medical School successfully developed Ciclopirox, an anti-fungal drug available in the form of a foot cream that can permanently eradicate HIV from infected cells by forcing them to "commit suicide."
