Gamers succeed where scientists fail: Molecular structure of retrovirus enzyme solved

Gamers have solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade. The gamers achieved their discovery by playing Foldit, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.


http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-gamers-sc...ar-retrovirus-enzyme.html

Hello Dan60,

Please forgive my late reply.

The FAAH team was not part of that exciting discovery of new broadly-neutralizing antibodies against HIV, but we wish them the best of luck with their research.

Thank you very much for your support,
Alex L. Perryman, Ph.D.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110919171345.htm

Could Engineered Fatty Particles Help Prevent AIDS? Liposomes Block HIV Infection in Early Tests

ScienceDaily (Sep. 19, 2011) — [...] Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston envision a new way for women to protect themselves before sex: an applicator filled with specially formulated fatty particles called liposomes [which] inhibited HIV infection in cell culture and appeared safe in female mice when injected intravaginally. [...] Liposomes can be filled with drugs or other compounds, but in this case, Kohane and colleagues found, to their surprise, that the liposomes alone were effective in blocking infection. [...] They bind to HIV, perhaps interfering with the virus's ability to fuse with cell membranes, the first step in infection. "The idea, simplistically, is that liposomes look like cell membranes," [...] Especially effective were liposomes containing cardiolipin, a fat that was first found in animal hearts; performance was further improved by adding a synthetic phospholipid. [...] these formulations caused little or no inflammation, which can compromise the vaginal lining and increase the risk of HIV transmission. Imaging confirmed that the liposomes remained in place or left the body, but did not travel beyond the vagina. [...]

http://www.sciencecodex.com/spiral_constricti..._cellular_nutrient_uptake

[... Researchers] have determined the molecular structure of dynamin, a 'wire-puller' that mediates nutrient uptake into the cell. [...] pathogens such as HIV can also enter the body's cells in this way [...] An important 'wire-puller' of endocytosis is the protein molecule dynamin. And that in the most literal sense of the word: If a vesicle forms, the dynamin molecules self-assemble and form a spiral around the neck of the vesicle. Dynamin functions like a small motor: It uses the energy of the cell's GTP to pull the spiral together, constricting the neck of the vesicle so that it detaches from the cell membrane. [...]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110922180020.htm

New Targets for the Control of HIV Predicted Using a Novel Computational Analysis

ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2011) — A new computational approach has predicted numerous human proteins that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) requires to replicate itself. These discoveries "constitute a powerful resource for experimentalists who desire to discover new targets for human proteins that can control the spread of HIV," according to the authors of this study that appears in the Sept. 22, 2011 issue of PLoS Computational Biology [...] Since viruses such as HIV have very small genomes, they must exploit the cellular machinery of the host to spread. Therefore, disrupting the activity of selected host proteins may impede viruses. Moreover, since human proteins evolve at a much slower rate than HIV proteins, human proteins that are targeted by drugs are very unlikely to develop mutations that render the drugs ineffective.

In fact, three studies published in 2008 systematically silenced virtually every human gene in order to discover HIV Dependency Factors (HDFs), i.e., those genes that are necessary for HIV to survive and replicate. Each of these three studies discovered hundreds of HDFs. However, a puzzling aspect was that only a handful of HDFs were common to two or more experiments.

"We set out to untangle this mystery," Murali said. "We hypothesized that many HDFs have not yet been discovered. Other papers had suggested that HDFs may themselves interact with each other. Inspired by these observations, we hypothesized that we could predict new HDFs by exploiting the proximity between HDFs within networks of interactions between human proteins."

To this end, they used an algorithm called SinkSource developed by Murali and Tyler. [...] One species, the African green monkey, does not develop disease when infected by SIV, in contrast to the other species, pig-tailed macaque. Using data already published by Katze, the authors showed that predicted HDFs had very different patterns of expression in the two species, especially in lymph nodes and within 10 days after infection with the virus. They also showed that predicted HDFs participated in human cellular processes that are known to be subverted by the virus, including gene transcription and translation, energy production, protein degradation, and transport across the nuclear membrane. Moreover, many predicted HDFs themselves directly interacted with proteins in HIV.

From these results, Murali, Tyler, and Katze concluded that existing genomic screens are "incomplete and many HDFs are yet to be discovered experimentally. Our results suggest that many HDFs are yet to be discovered and that they have potential value as prognostic markers to determine pathological outcome and the likelihood of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) development."