Scientists have finally discovered the structure of a key enzyme found in HIV and similar viruses, a breakthrough that has crucial implications for HIV treatment.
Researchers from Imperial College London, in the UK, and Harvard University, in the US, developed a crystal that could reveal the structure of integrase - an enzyme used by HIV to integrate its genetic material into a host cell.
Many researchers had tried and failed to unravel the three-dimensional structure of integrase, which is bound to viral DNA. When someone is infected with HIV, the virus uses integrase to paste a copy of its genetic information into the person's DNA.
The new study, published in the latest edition of Nature, a scientific journal, revealed how a class of life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs - integrase inhibitors - functions. The drugs work by blocking integrase, but for a long time scientists did not understand fully how the medicines managed to do this, or how to improve them.
CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL REPORT
Http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=87951
|
