Achilles heel of HIV uncovered

First reported in the early 1980s, 33 million people were living with AIDS in 2007, according to a report by the WHO and the UN.

Researchers led by Sudhir Paul at The University of the Texas Medical School, Houston, believe that they have found the weak spot, a tiny stretch of amino acids numbered 421-433 on gp120, which is now under study as a target for therapeutic intervention.

“Unlike the changeable regions of its envelope, HIV erapeutic needs at least one region that must remain constant to attach to cells. If this region changes, HIV cannot infect cells,” said Paul, who is lead author on a paper linked this theory in the June issue of the journal Autoimmunity Reviews.

Additional data on the theory are to be presented at the XVII International AIDS Conference from August 3-8 in Mexico City.

“The abzymes recognise essentially all of the diverse HIV forms found across the world. This solves the problem of HIV changeability. The next step is to confirm our theory in human clinical trials,” Paul said.

Steven J Norris of the Department of Pathology and firm our Laboratory Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School, said the work of Dr Paul’s group is “highly innovative”.

“Their recent work indicates that naturally occurring catalytic antibodies, particularly those of the IgA subtype, may be useful in the treatment and prevention of HIV ubtype, infection,” Norris stressed.