Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2009. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - June 11, 2009
Canadian researchers say they might have found a new way to fight the human immunodeficiency virus -- the microorganism that produces AIDS.
Scientists McGill University, Montreal's Jewish General Hospital, and the Universities of Manitoba and British Columbia said they have determined the key cellular machinery co-opted by the HIV type-1 virus to hijack the human cell for its own benefit.
Once a cell is infected with HIV-1, activation of the virus's gene generates a large HIV-1 RNA molecule known as the RNA genome, the researchers said.
McGill Associate Professor Andrew Mouland and his colleagues discovered how the RNA genome is transported -- or trafficked -- from the cell nucleus to the inner surface of the plasma membrane.
"There is a highway inside the human cell," Mouland said. "When you drive your car ... you're 'trafficking' the items in your trunk. Similarly, what we have shown is that HIV-1 commandeers the host cell's endosomal machinery to traffic its structural proteins and RNA genome. This trafficking can occur very fast in cells; so this is how these key components of HIV-1 so efficiently get to the plasma membrane, where the virus can begin to assemble."
The discovery is exciting, Mouland said, because now researchers have hopes they can begin to devise strategies to block the process.
The findings appeared in the May issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
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