Researchers cure HIV-infected mice

Molecular biologists rid mice of deadly HI viruses

18/12/2013

Molecular biologists from the University Cancer Center (UCC) of the Medical Faculty of the TU Dresden have reached a medical milestone: They have freed several infected laboratory mice from deadly HI viruses, thus ensuring that the animals have recovered. The researchers have thus created a new hope in the fight against AIDS.

Scientists optimize the enzyme for years „Tre recombinase“
Scientists from the University Cancer Center (UCC) of the Medical Faculty of the TU Dresden have managed to achieve a medical miracle: They took HIV-infected viruses from infected laboratory mice and thereby created the condition that the animals could recover. This is achieved by means of the „Biomedicine“, a subdiscipline of human biology, which, as an interdisciplinary subject area, links the contents of experimental medicine with molecular biology and cell biology. For example, molecular biologists at UCC had the enzyme for several years „Tre recombinase“ using a biotechnological process optimized so that this in the form of a „molecular scissors“ recognize the viral genome and excise it from the genome of affected cells.

Tre recombinase can reverse HIV infection
In a joint project with colleagues from the Hamburg Heinrich Pette Institute, Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology, the cultured enzyme was finally used by treating the HIV infection in mice. Earlier experiments had shown that genetically engineered Tre recombinase is capable of reversing HIV infection - but the new study has now shown that the enzyme „HIV-1 can also be removed from an infected living organism again“, so the message of the Heinrich Pette Institute.

„High antiviral activity without any unwanted side effects“
For the scientists an important breakthrough in the field of AIDS research: „Our latest results are particularly pleasing, as the technically complex introduction of Tre recombinase into cells and their high antiviral activity could be demonstrated for the first time in animal models without any undesirable side effects. These results suggest that Tre recombinase may be part of a treatment to cure HIV virus infections in the foreseeable future“, said the head of the department „Antiviral strategies“ at the Heinrich Pette Institute, Prof. Joachim Hauber.

"Molecular Scissors" could be worked out in about ten years
Whether the use of the tre recombinase could also be successful in humans, now has to be tested in clinical trials according to the scientist. According to the Dresdner team leader Professor Frank Buchholz, the "molecular scissors" could be developed in about ten years, so that theoretically a somatic gene therapy would be possible. In this hematopoietic stem cells were removed and the Tre recombinase enzyme using a so-called „Gene vector“ be introduced. The blood stem cells genetically engineered in this way would then be transplanted back to the patient - this being the case „own“ According to Buchholz, no rejection reactions are to be expected.

Tre recombinase is a valuable component of future therapy
From the perspective of the researchers, it can be assumed that following this intervention, more and more genetically modified immune cells would grow and the blood system would be renewed step by step. Thus, according to Buchholz, the patient could be cured in the long term - at least in the case of laboratory mice, where the amount of virus had decreased significantly or even no longer had been detectable in the blood. Therefore, the current results could mean a breakthrough in the treatment of HIV patients: „The in vivo analysis of Tre recombinase revealed a highly significant antiviral effect of Tre in HIV-infected humanized mice. The data presented show that Tre recombinase could be a valuable component of future antiviral therapy“, so Hauber in the journal „PLoS pathogens“.

Method could bring new hope for HIV patients
The spokesman for the Competence Network HIV / AIDS, Professor Norbert Brockmeyer, sees great potential in the idea of ​​the "molecular scissors", which in his opinion should definitely be pursued. So be indeed „certainly a research of 10 to 15 years needed before this is in the clinic“ - but if successful with this method, this is another step on the path to curing HIV infection. (No)