AIDS Viral Peptide Delivers© Neal Rolfe Chamberlain
Sep 27, 1999
Infection with the AIDS virus has resulted in millions of lost and broken
lives. Sometimes good can come out of a bad situation. In a recent
Science (Sept. 3, 1999) article titled, "In vivo Protein
Transduction: Delivery of a Biologically Active Protein into the Mouse"
researchers reported that an AIDS viral protein can bring other proteins
into living cells. This AIDS virus protein is called tat and is an enzyme
that helps in the making of viral RNA. This protein does not help the virus
infect cells so using it would not cause people to get AIDS.
This tat protein could enable scientists to study and treat diseases
that they were unable to do anything with before. Damage to proteins causes
many human diseases, including cancer and genetically inherited disorders
as sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, and phenylketonuria. Inserting
a working version of the damaged protein into affected cells could help
in treating such illnesses. Before these experiments this would have been
impossible. The cells of our body do not allow large bulky proteins to
enter in.
However, when these researchers connected a portion of the tat protein
to two different bulky proteins they were able to get those proteins inside
the cells of mice. This discovery may give new hope to patients with protein
damaging diseases. For an excellent article on these studies go to the
following article from the Howard
Hughs Medical Institute.
Take Care and Think Microbiologically!
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