AEGiS-WSJ: Human Enzyme Can Block HIV Wall Street JournalImportant note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Human Enzyme Can Block HIV

Wall Street Journal - April 14, 2005
Marilyn Chase, marilyn.chase@wsj.com

Researchers have found out why a natural antiviral shield against HIV, found in human cells, sometimes works and at other times doesn't block the virus that causes AIDS. The finding could become the focus of a hunt for new drug therapies.

The shield is an enzyme called A3G (short for APOBEC3G). A small version of this enzyme repels the virus. But when the A3G transforms into a large molecule, the shield becomes porous, letting HIV infect cells. If scientists can find a drug that preserves the small form of the enzyme, it could keep this antiviral shield intact and foil HIV , researchers said in the journal Nature.

"However it's working, it (A3G) knocks this virus flat," said Warner C. Greene, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology at the University of California at San Francisco. Postdoctoral fellow Ya-Lin Chiu was the lead researcher and Dr. Greene senior author of the study.

Ever since the discovery of HIV , scientists have grappled with the paradox that the virus can only infect key cells of the immune system, called T4-cells, when they are activated and trying to defend against invaders. T4-cells in a resting state, before activation, are impervious to HIV .

But A3G's defense can be undone when it grows into the larger A3G molecule.


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