Mayo Clinic Discovers Cellular Factor Blocks HIV-1 Production

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Researchers at Mayo Clinic have shown that a cellular factor restricts production of HIV-1 by actively degrading a viral protein. The findings appear in the online version of the journal Nature Medicine.

"By better understanding the newly discovered mechanism, this may offer researchers new targets for anti-HIV therapies," says Yasuhiro Ikeda, D.V.M., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic molecular biologist and lead author of the study.

The cellular factor uncovered by Dr. Ikeda and colleagues is called TRIM5α, found in humans and monkeys. The researchers' finding shows that rhesus monkey TRIM5α (TRIM5αrh) stops HIV-1 production because it can recognize the virus by its structural protein Gag. TRIM5αrh then destroys the Gag proteins before viral progenies are released from infected cells.

"This is the first report to show a cellular factor blocking HIV-1 production by actively degrading a viral protein," explains Dr. Ikeda. "We speculate that a subset of the large TRIM family proteins can act as a new group of antiviral factors. Although human TRIM5α cannot block HIV-1 production, we may be able to develop a drug which influences human TRIM5α to behave like that of rhesus monkeys."

Other researchers from Mayo include Ryuta Sakuma, Ph.D.; Josh A. Noser; and Seiga Ohmine.

The research was funded by Mayo Clinic.

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