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 September 11 8:48 PM EDT
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

They said human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) had surrendered secrets about how it steals a gene from its human victim and uses it to invade cells in an act of "molecular piracy".

Thue Schwartz of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and a team of international colleagues, working with Glaxo-Wellcome (GLXO.L), found the virus produces vMIP-II, a protein that looks like a chemokine.

Chemokines are signalling chemicals involved in immune response and known to be important to understanding how HIV works. HIV often uses the same receptors, or chemical doorways into cells, as chemokines use.

Writing in the journal Science, they said vMIP-II acts as a blocking agent, binding to chemokine receptors and preventing white blood cells from being attracted to the site of infection.

"Because vMIP-II could inhibit cell entry of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) ... this protein may serve as a lead for development of broad-spectrum anti-HIV agents," they wrote.

"No known human chemokine has as broad a spectrum of activities as vMIP-II," they added.

Some of the receptors the vMIP-II blocks are CCR5 and CXCR4, known to be used by HIV. Recent research has found that different strains of HIV attach to different receptors, and the virus may switch to different receptors as it mutates.

Glaxo said in a statement that the biological process used by the HHV-8 virus to make vMIP-II was similar to standard drug discovery methods.

"The hope is that by understanding how the virus made this antagonist, we will learn lessons which will help us in the design of our own drugs," said Tim Wells of Glaxo's Institute of Biomedical Research in Geneva.

"vMIP-II will help us understand the structural differences between these two types of receptors and may lead to the discovery of a small molecule that would block both receptors," Well added.

HHV-8 cause Kaposi's sarcoma, a once-rare form of cancer that is now one of the marker diseases for AIDS. The virus is a relative of the viruses that cause genital herpes and cold sores.

Glaxo said HHV-8 was probably using the chemokine to shut off the inflammatory response normally associated with a tumor, which means it could also be useful against inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or asthma.

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