Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1988. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press; Friday, November 25, 1988
Dr. Jonathan W. Uhr, chairman of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said a synthetic molecule called recombinant CD4 can be used in a test tube to deliver a killer toxin to cells infected with AIDS.
Uhr said it will be at least a year before the technique can be tested on patients. And, though this technique shows promise, he said it will not cure AIDS.
Uhr said the CD4 molecule naturally binds to a gycoprotein, called gp120, that forms on the surface of cells infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS.
CD4 will not attach itself to cells uninfected with HIV, he said.
In the lab, Uhr said, his research group combined a synthetic CD4 molecule with a toxin called ricin that is extracted from plants.
When exposed to HIV-infected cells, he said, the CD4-ricin combination binds to the cell surfaces, and the ricin then kills the cell, thus eliminating a source of HIV virus.
"Early in the course of HIV infection, T-cells and macrophages (two types of immunity cells) are thought to be the major cellular reservoirs for the virus. Both of those bear the CD4 molecule that permits the virus to enter," said Uhr.
One drawback, he said, is that the AIDS virus can invade cells and stay there quietly, not making the gp120 protein that would be targeted by the CD4 molecule.
"We would not expect it to kill a latently infected cell, and this represents a significant obstacle in terms of curing this disease," said Uhr. "I think that one might expect, at best, to slow it down."
A report on the study is published today in Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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