Mouse “model” of AIDS mimics human disease

	Tweet

AIDS research has been hampered because mice, which usually provide an excellent model for studying human disease, cannot be infected with HIV. Now, researchers have created a modified HIV strain that can infect mice.

Dr. Mary Jane Potash, at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and colleagues swapped the HIV gene that encodes a surface protein called gp120, which recognizes human cells, with a gene for gp80 from a mouse leukemia virus.

The resulting “chimeric” virus, dubbed EcoHIV, infects about 75 percent of mice tested—an efficiency that is comparable to that of HIV in humans, the team report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

EcoHIV was observed in immune cells and white blood cells in the spleen, abdominal cavity, and the brain.

“In some mice the viral (level) is going up 5 months after infection, which means there is active replication going on,” Potash told Reuters Health. “And since we can detect virus in a week, when we have drugs to test we can potentially see an effect in vivo as fast as you can in culture.”

As for the development of an AIDS vaccine, Potash continued, “If there’s one place we ought to be able to discover how to get a good response it’s in a mouse where you have live virus infection that you might be able to control.”

She added, “One of the greatest advantages of this model is that the virus, at least in culture, does not infect human cells, so it ought to be a lot safer to use than HIV.”

SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online February 22, 2005.

RELATED STORIES:
HIV Migrants hist 1,000 in Britain   AIDS virus entered UK six times, study shows   Canada study finds link between smoking crack, HIV   Roche’s AIDS drug Fuzeon shows two-year benefits   Spike Reported in Number of People with HIV Having a Stroke   White physicians slower to prescribe HIV medications for African-Americans than for whites   HIV infection disclosure to partner can vary   Less frequent Pap tests may be safe for some with HIV   Malawi losing 10 people per hour to AIDS   Study: 6.7 percent of S. African children have HIV   Black-white differences in HIV care seen in US   WHO Nixes 2 Approved HIV Drugs

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]