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WASHINGTON: Scientists trying to figure out why a few people resist the ravages of AIDS say they have captured a snapshot of an immune system structure that could help them design a drug to boost the body's defenses against the virus.
Having an image of the enzyme, called A3G, could help researchers design a drug to mimic its effects and perhaps provide the first medicine to boost the ability to fight AIDS, the team at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York said.
A small%age of people infected with HIV never become ill. They are called long-term non-progressors, or "elite" patients. Some studies have suggested that these elite patients have extra copies of A3G, which disables HIV by making it mutate to death.
"We all know that HIV gets away from therapy by creating a lot of mutations in itself," said Harold Smith, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics who helped lead the study.
"This enzyme has the ability to push mutations in HIV to the point where the viruses' own genome fails. If we protect this enzyme, we have the ability to push HIV into failure," Smith said in a telephone interview.
HIV fights back against A3G with a gene called vif. In most cases, HIV overwhelms A3G as it attacks the immune system.
Having an image of the enzyme, called A3G, could help researchers design a drug to mimic its effects and perhaps provide the first medicine to boost the ability to fight AIDS, the team at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York said.
A small%age of people infected with HIV never become ill. They are called long-term non-progressors, or "elite" patients. Some studies have suggested that these elite patients have extra copies of A3G, which disables HIV by making it mutate to death.
"We all know that HIV gets away from therapy by creating a lot of mutations in itself," said Harold Smith, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics who helped lead the study.
"This enzyme has the ability to push mutations in HIV to the point where the viruses' own genome fails. If we protect this enzyme, we have the ability to push HIV into failure," Smith said in a telephone interview.
HIV fights back against A3G with a gene called vif. In most cases, HIV overwhelms A3G as it attacks the immune system.
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