Researchers look to slow HIV progression to AIDS

Researchers are looking to harness the protective mechanism in the protein SAMHD1 in order to slow HIV progression to AIDS.

Researchers from New York University are exploring the molecular material of cells, called deoxynucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs), which is attacked by HIV in order to replicate. They found that cells containing SAMHD1 are protected from hijacking, and can protect the cell by destroying the pool of dNTPs, which essential means that the virus has no building blocks to make its genetic information.

This results in the virus entering the cells and having nothing to build or replicate with, and thus slows the transition into AIDS considerably. The most common forms of HIV do not readily infect these cells, and instead replicate into CD4 T-cells, which do not contain SAMHD1 and therefore have a healthy pool of dNTPs.

Dr Nathaniel Landau, professor of microbiology at NYU, commented on the science news: “Viruses are remarkably clever about evading our immune defences.

“They can evolve quickly and have developed ways to get around the systems we naturally have in place to protect us.”