A natural component of human blood has been found to block the HIV virus from infecting cells. It may lead to the development of another class of antiretroviral drugs to fight HIV/AIDS.
The newly identified compound prevents the virus from attaching a molecular anchor to the cell it is invading. No existing drugs affect this stage of infection, so the German team hopes the compound could be modified to form a new class of similar drugs.
Nearly 40 million people living with HIV worldwide and 3m deaths last year, new approaches are urgently needed.
The scientists discovered the compound called Virus-Inhibitory Peptide or VIRIP by screening hundreds of proteins from human blood. A number of studies have suggested that VIRIP in the human blood are able to inhibit HIV-1 and control it.
The researchers also found that VIRIP and its derivatives were effective against drug-resistant strains of HIV.
There are at present around 20 different HIV drugs categorized into four different classes; a number of HIV strains are now becoming drug resistant, and HIV resistance to one drug can lead to resistance to other drugs in the same class.
Prof Kirchoff said:
You want a lot of drug classes, because multi-drug resistant viruses are starting to show up more and more. In at least some industrialized countries, it is already a severe problem.
The team at Ulm University Hospital in Germany published their findings in the US journal Cell.
