Scientists in Germany have discovered a way to remove HIV from infected cells, the Associated Press reports. The study, published in Science magazine, involves a newly engineered enzyme that attacks the DNA of the virus and cuts it from infected cells.
"A customized enzyme that effectively excises integrated HIV-1 from infected cells in vitro might one day help to eradicate [the] virus from AIDS patients," Alan Engelman of Harvard Medical School affiliate Dana-Farber Cancer Institute wrote in an article accompanying the study, according to the AP.
The study's authors said the enzyme, called Tre, won't be available as a treatment anytime in the near future, but it's a step forward in the fight 40 million infected people face worldwide.
The enzyme's method of finding HIV's DNA might be the key to overcoming what the article calls a substantial obstacle: the virus's ability to go undetected for several months or years because of its occasional dormancy within infected cells. Still, barriers remain before the enzyme can be made publicly available.
"The most important, and likely most difficult, among these is that the enzyme would need efficient and safe means of delivery and would have to be able to function without adverse side effects," wrote the study's lead author, Indrani Sarkar of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden.
Sarkar concluded, "Nevertheless, the results we present offer an early proof of principal for this type of approach, which we speculate might form a useful basis for the development of future HIV therapies." (The Advocate)
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