Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Thursday July 24, 1997 1:52 PM EDT
Now a new study suggests that the virus may promote this process by stimulating infected cells to secrete a protein, called Tat. The Tat protein appear to spur quiescent, uninfected T cells to become activated, a state most hospitable to infection by the virus.
The new finding offers a promising avenue of research in the fight against AIDS, according to study authors from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
"Our results suggest potential therapeutic strategies for HIV-1 infection," such as antibodies or drugs that neutralize Tat after it has been secreted, wrote lead study author Chiang Li, of Harvard Medical School.
"Tat protein may serve as a target for potential AIDS vaccine development," Li wrote in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In the new study, quiescent, uninfected T cells collected from blood samples were treated with Tat protein, a process that "primed" the cells and made them vulnerable to infection by HIV in laboratory culture dishes.
"These results suggest that HIV-1 has evolved a self-perpetuating mechanism to activate general cells permissive for productive and cytopathic (cell-killing) infection," the authors wrote.
The study was supported by Merck Research and the National Institutes of Health.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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