(Press-News.org) DURHAM, NC – Researchers have been stymied for years over the fact that people infected with the AIDS virus do indeed produce antibodies in response to the pathogen – antibodies that turn out to be ineffective in blocking infection.
Now, scientists at Duke University Medical Center can explain why: Some of the earliest and most abundant antibodies available to fight HIV can't actually "see" the virus until after it's already invaded a healthy cell.
The scientists based their conclusion on the results of a series of crystallography and biochemical experiments that revealed the specific molecular structures different types of antibodies need to have in place in order for them to mount an effective defense.
Previous research had shown that two of the most robust antibodies against HIV –antibodies called 2F5 and 4E10 – target a specific part of the outer coating of the virus called the MPER region of gp41. The antibodies, which operate in a lock and key relationship, are able to latch on to the virus as it reveals this vulnerable part of its structure, referred to as an "Achilles heel" of the AIDS virus.
"What our studies revealed, however, is that the virus actually creates two versions of this 'Achilles heel,' says Barton Haynes, MD, director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) and the senior author of the study appearing online in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. "One version is for these rarer, broadly-neutralizing antibodies, and the other is for the more abundant, first-responding antibodies that won't be able to do much good because the Achilles heel isn't detectable to them until the virus has already gained entry."
Nathan Nicely, PhD, the lead author of the study and a member of the DHVI, designed and conducted most of the crystallography studies. "This structure has been difficult to obtain, but now that we have it, it has been instrumental in our understanding why this non-neutralizing antibody interacts with the HIV-1 outer coat."
Haynes says the findings are important because they distinguish what parts of the virus an antibody needs to recognize from those parts that are decoys. "We are homing in on a better understanding of what the immune system needs to do in order to mount an effective defense against HIV."
INFORMATION:
The study was funded by a Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Colleagues who contributed to the study include S. Moses Dennison, Leonard Spicer, Richard Scearce, Garnett Kelsoe, Yoshihiro Ueda, Haiyan Chen, Hua-Xin Liao, and S. Munir Alam, all from Duke.
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Boston, MA – A new poll from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Knowledge Networks (KN) shows that many people with heart disease, diabetes or cancer believe the economic downturn is hurting their health and will have further negative impacts in the future. Many Americans with these illnesses face financial problems paying for medical bills in this economy. Most of these people do not believe the new national health care reform law (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 2010) will help them. This national poll is the first in a collaborative ...
Alcoholic drinks served in pubs should be taxed at a lower level than drinks bought from shops, says an expert in this week's BMJ.
This action would deliver the health benefits associated with introducing a minimum price on alcohol, increase tax revenue for the Treasury and save pubs says Dr Nick Sheron.
The author is head of clinical hepatology at the University of Southampton, a member of the Alcohol Health Alliance and an advisor for the 2010 House of Commons Select Committee Report on Alcohol.
Sheron says lowering VAT for alcohol sold in pubs would solve the plight ...
New Orleans, LA – Dr. Rohan Walvekar, Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Director of Clinical Research and the Salivary Endoscopy Service at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has reported the first use of a surgical robot guided by a miniature salivary endoscope to remove a 20mm salivary stone and repair the salivary duct of a 31-year-old patient. Giant stones have traditionally required complete removal of the salivary gland. Building upon their success with the combination of salivary endoscopic guidance with surgery, Dr. Walvekar and his ...
Living in a deprived area increases the risk of violence more sharply for girls than boys, according to a Cardiff University study of former industrial areas.
The new results suggest violence prevention strategies need to focus more on local inequalities, especially to protect vulnerable adolescent girls.
The survey was conducted by the Violence and Society Research Group at Cardiff University. The team studied nearly 700 young people, aged 11 to 17, who attended casualty departments in South Wales with injuries from violence. The researchers matched the patients against ...
INDIANAPOLIS – A potent anti-tumor gene introduced into mice with metastatic melanoma has resulted in permanent immune reconfiguration and produced a complete remission of their cancer, according to an article to be published in the December 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The online version is now available.
Indiana University School of Medicine researchers used a modified lentivirus to introduce a potent anti-melanoma T cell receptor gene into the hematopoietic stem cells of mice. Hematopoietic stem cells are the bone marrow cells that produce all ...
Many studies support the assertion that moderate drinking is beneficial when it comes to cardiovascular health, and for the first time scientists have discovered that a well-known molecule, called Notch, may be behind alcohol's protective effects. Down the road, this finding could help scientists create a new treatment for heart disease that mimics the beneficial influence of modest alcohol consumption.
"Any understanding of a socially acceptable, modifiable activity that many people engage in, like drinking, is useful as we continue to search for new ways to improve ...
Scientists have simulated, for the first time, the merger of two black holes of vastly different sizes, with one mass 100 times larger than the other. This extreme mass ratio of 100:1 breaks a barrier in the fields of numerical relativity and gravitational wave astronomy.
Until now, the problem of simulating the merger of binary black holes with extreme size differences had remained an unexplored region of black-hole physics.
"Nature doesn't collide black holes of equal masses," says Carlos Lousto, associate professor of mathematical sciences at Rochester Institute ...
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In an article published in the peer-reviewed journal International Forestry Review, scientists at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) examined how revenues from a tax paid by logging companies in Cameroon, ...
Researchers from the Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), in collaboration with researchers from the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), have developed an identification system for oocytes and embryos in which each can be individually tagged using silicon barcodes. Researchers are now working to perfect the system and soon will test it with human oocytes and embryos.
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Successfully treating and reversing the effects of multiple sclerosis, or MS, may one day be possible using a drug originally developed to treat chronic pain, according to Distinguished Professor Linda Watkins of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Watkins and her colleagues in CU-Boulder's department of psychology and neuroscience discovered that a single injection of a compound called ATL313 -- an anti-inflammatory drug being developed to treat chronic pain -- stopped the progression of MS-caused paralysis in rats for weeks at a time.
Lisa Loram, a senior research ...
