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Tracking and Not Trekking!
October 18, 2007 at 6:31 PM
AIDS/HIV News
The researchers say that their findings may pave the way for new therapeutic agents that target the virus earlier in the disease process, before it takes a lethal turn.
'We were very interested in understanding how the virus mutates from the beginning of the infection until the end,' said Marco Salemi, an assistant professor of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine in the UF College of Medicine and lead author on the study, which appeared in an online issue of the journal PLoS ONE in September.
'Previously, the only thing known was that somehow the HIV population mutates. And as soon as that happens, patients start developing AIDS. But no one knew how and where the population evolved over time,' he added.
The researchers tracked four children born with HIV. They studied their blood samples taken at birth, throughout life and just after death, when tissues samples were also taken. The mutations in a protein that enables HIV to attach to human cells were monitored by using a high-resolution computational technique.
Thereafter, the researchers categorised the virus into two groups, namely, R5 and X4. While the population of R5 virus is usually present in high numbers during the early stages of infection, the population of X4 enters the scene just before HIV gives way to full-blown AIDS. With a view to finding out when and where the telltale X4 population first appeared, the researchers tracked the viruses in each patient.
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