PHILADELPHIA, March 31 (UPI) -- Researchers said Friday they have found an HIV protein that might provide a key in the fight against AIDS.
Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine said that an HIV-1 accessory protein called "Vpr" appears to destroy the host cell's ability to survive by binding to a host receptor.
This binding ability then keeps an important enzyme from activating the host cell's immune system.
This finding might not only eventually provide a new approach to treating AIDS, but may also help in the battle against inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, and even sepsis, the researchers said.
Earlier research had already shown that the Vpr protein binds to the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) of the host cell, but the question of whether the GR pathway was required for Vpr to commandeer the host cell's machinery had still eluded scientists.
To answer this question, the researchers used an siRNA, a short sequence of RNA used to silence gene expression, to completely destroy expression of the glucocorticoid receptor protein.
When the researchers kept the glucocorticoid receptor protein from being made, Vpr did not kill host cells, they noted.
"This indicated that glucocorticoid receptor function is not what's really necessary for Vpr activity," the researchers said. "The glucocorticoid receptor-Vpr complex must be interacting with something else."
The findings appear in the February print issue of Nature Cell Biology.
