Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Reuters NewMedia - Friday November 30, 2001
The researchers, led by Dr. Paul Bieniasz of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at New York's Rockefeller University, said they hoped their finding might lead to the discovery of new drugs to help treat HIV and Ebola infections.
Their study, published in the December issue of the journal Nature Medicine, shows HIV and Ebola use a protein called Tsg101 to bud from the cells they infect.
Both viruses hijack cells, inject their genetic material, and turn the cells into little virus factories. New copies of the virus "bud" from the cells in one of the steps of this process, before going in search of new cells to infect.
As both HIV and Ebola bud, Tsg101 attaches to the virus and helps it to emerge from the cell, the researchers reported.
They said it might be possible to design a drug that interferes with this process. That would presumably prevent the spread of the virus in an infected person.
"It's remarkable to see two such different viruses share a common budding mechanism," Bieniasz said in a statement.
"This may present a new target for drugs to treat HIV and Ebola infection, and our research team has begun working on drug discovery based on this research."
To confirm the study findings, the researchers genetically engineered a hybrid of HIV and Ebola, and a hybrid of HIV and the Tsg101 protein.
Both engineered viruses were able to infect new cells, they said.
There is no cure for either HIV or Ebola infection. Ebola causes a hemorrhagic disease that kills 70 percent of its victims within days.
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