Enlisting the AIDS Virus to Fight Cancer
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2012) — Can HIV be transformed into a biotechnological tool for improving human health? According to a CNRS team at the Architecture et Réactivité de l'ARN (RNA Architecture and Reactivity) laboratory, the answer is yes. Taking advantage of the HIV replication machinery, the researchers have been able to select a specific mutant protein. Added to a culture of tumor cells in combination with an anticancer drug, this protein improves the effectiveness of the treatment at 1/300 the normal dosage levels.
Published in PLoS Genetics on 23 August 2012, these findings could lead to long-term therapeutic applications in the treatment of cancer and other pathologies.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, uses human cell material to multiply, primarily by inserting its genetic material into the host cells' genome. The distinctive characteristic of HIV is that it mutates constantly, and consequently generates several mutant proteins (or variants) in the course of its successive multiplications. This phenomenon allows the virus to adapt to repeated environmental changes and resist the antiviral treatments that have been developed so far.
At the IBMC (Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire) in Strasbourg, the researchers of the CNRS Architecture et Réactivité de l'ARN laboratory had the idea of using this multiplication strategy to rechannel the effects of the virus for therapeutic purposes, in particular the treatment of cancer.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120828073304.htm
