Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bay Area Reporter - December 14, 2000
Ed Walsh
University of California, San Francisco researchers have discovered that one of the few drugs available to treat hepatitis C, ribavirin, works by overwhelming the virus with a flood of mutations.
"That ribavirin destroys viruses by generating excess mutations comes as a big surprise because viruses that the drug attacks, those with RNA [ribonucleic acid] as their genetic material, usually profit from their ability to mutate," said Shane Crotty, a graduate student in UCSF's department of microbiology and immunology. "RNA viruses like HIV and the influenza virus use a naturally high mutation rate to avoid and escape most treatments and vaccines.
"These viruses are incredibly clever. They use mutations to get around almost anything. But we now see that ribavirin adds so many extra mutations to the virus, that it is pushed into a kind of genetic meltdown," added Crotty.
Two pharmaceutical companies have already begun working with the study findings to develop a more effective form of ribavirin. Currently, ribavirin is prescribed together with the immune boosting drug interferon-alpha for patients who have hepatitis C, but it cures only about a third of these cases.
So what does the study mean for HIV? Could the cure for HIV be as simple as forcing the virus to burn out by overmutating?
Crotty told the Bay Area Reporter that HIV presents a unique challenge because although it's classified as an RNA virus, it converts into its host's DNA. But Crotty said he is hopeful that other scientists could use his study to develop new and unique strategies to fight HIV.
"I think now that we've shown that this strategy, this mutationizing the virus, not only can work in a laboratory environment but is actually the way the clinically used antiviral drug [ribavirin] works, I do think that will excite drug companies to pursue that as an avenue of anti-viral drug strategy, and hopefully even try that out against HIV. I don't see why they shouldn't," said Crotty.
The study is published in the December issue of Nature Medicine. Crotty's main co-investigators on the study were Craig Cameron, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Pennsylvania State University, and Raul Andino, Ph.D., UCSF associate professor of microbiology and immunology.
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