It's complicated, but it's good news. Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed what could possibly be the first new way in 20 years of inhibiting the growth of HIV, thus having the potential to develop new AIDS drugs.
Again, it's complicated, but it's good news.
Excerpt:
A protease is an enzyme that clips apart proteins, and in the case of
HIV drugs, when the HIV-1 protease is inhibited it cannot process the
proteins required to assemble an active virus. In existing treatments,
a larger molecule binds to the center of the protease, freezing it
closed.
The new mechanism targets a different area of the HIV-1 protease,
called the flap recognition pocket, and actually holds the protease
open. Scientists knew the flaps opened and closed, but didn't know how
to target that as a mechanism, Carlson says.
Carlson's group discovered that this flap, when held open by a very
small molecule -- half the size of the ones used in current drug
treatments -- also inhibits the protease.
Read the entire article
here.