Scientists identify human proteins that may fuel HIV/AIDS transmission

HIV/AIDS has killed more than 25 million people around the world since first being identified some 30 years ago. In the United States alone, more than one million people live with HIV/AIDS at an annual cost of $34 billion.

Previously, scientists in Germany discovered that HIV transmission is linked to the presence of an amyloid fibril in semen. This fibril -- a small, positively charged structure derived from a larger protein -- promotes HIV infection by helping the virus find and attach to its target: CD4 T white blood cells. In tomorrow's issue of Cell Host & Microbe, researchers in the laboratory of Warner C. Greene, MD, PhD, who directs virology and immunology research at Gladstone, describe a second type of fibril that also has this ability.

These findings may spur efforts to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. Prevention has recently focused on microbicides; chemical gels that, when used by women during sexual intercourse, block HIV infection. But while early microbicides had some success -- reducing infection by an average of 39%—more recent trials have failed and devising a truly potent microbicide remains a top priority.

"Today's microbicides may be failing because, while they do target the virus itself, they don't block the virus from interacting with the natural infection-enhancing components of semen," said Nadia R. Roan, PhD, the paper's first author and a research scientist at Gladstone, an independent and nonprofit biomedical-research organization. "Now that we more fully understand how HIV hijacks these components to promote its own infection, we are one step closer to developing a microbicide that can more effectively stop HIV."

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-scientists-human-proteins-fuel-hivaids.html