Study shows promising new approach to thwart HIV

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have pinpointed a protein in a key human immune system cells needed for the AIDS virus to infect them, and found that turning it off can greatly slow down the deadly virus.

Inactivating a protein called ITK in immune system cells called T cells reduces HIV's ability to enter these cells and replicate itself, the researchers said on Monday.

A drug based on this approach could be useful as a complement to existing drugs used to treat HIV infection, said Andrew Henderson of Boston University, one of the researchers.

It might also perhaps help battle problems with drug resistance, added Dr. Pamela Schwartzberg of the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, another of the researchers.

"One of the real problems with treating HIV right now is that most of the drugs that we have are directed against parts of the virus," Schwartzberg said in a telephone interview.

"And with HIV, the virus rapidly mutates its genetic material, its genome," added Schwartzberg, whose findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

As a result, strains of the virus can emerge that are resistant to drugs given to people to combat HIV infection.

Doctors have tried to battle the often-mutating virus by giving people multi-drug regimens or switching drugs, but this can elevate the risk of toxic side effects and be hard for patients to follow.