Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Thursday, December 9, 1999
Patricia Reaney

A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester said a molecule, called the HIV matrix protein, acts like a traffic signal controlling two vital but different functions in the HIV infection cycle.

"It is a new (drug) target," Dr Michael Green, of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, told Reuters Wednesday.

"You think you understand this virus and then you find a new wrinkle, but the good thing here is that every time you find a new wrinkle it is a new function and that makes it a target for drug discovery," he said in a telephone interview.

Green and Dr. Mario Stevenson found the functions of the protein by studying normal and mutant forms of the HIV virus.

In a report in the science journal Nature, researchers showed how the protein helps HIV invade the cell nucleus, where it hijacks the cell's genetic machinery and produces its own genetic material, or RNA, forming the basis of new HIV proteins.

Redirecting Hiv Proteins

Later in the infection cycle it makes a U-turn and directs new HIV proteins out of the cell nucleus into the surrounding cytoplasm where the new viruses are made.

"It gives you two shots at it (the virus). If you disrupt either function you'll inhibit the viral replication," Green said.

And unlike existing AIDS drugs that target reverse transcriptease in one class and protease in the other, the matrix protein provides the potential to attack the virus on completely different fronts.

"You can stop the replication in its tracks. You would stop it from coming out of the infected cell and keep it contained within a single infected cell," Green added.

It is still early days in terms of drug development, but Green said he and his colleagues have delineated a clear path on how to go about discovering a drug to target the protein.

As it is highly specific to the virus, unlike existing treatments any drug targeting it should not have side effects. It could also theoretically be used as a prophylatic.

"So if somebody is infected by the virus, as long as they are taking a drug (targeting the protein) the virus cannot spread," Green said. Leading AIDS expert Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) that funded the research, said it helps fill in a missing piece of the HIV reproductive process.

"The findings suggest we may be able to devise therapies that subvert the order and timing of cellular events necessary for HIV replication," he said in statement.

So far more than 33 million people have died of AIDS. The latest figures released by UNAIDS, the UN agency leading the fight against the disease, showed that 2.6 million have died of the disease this year -- the highest number since the epidemic began in 1981.
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