Rapid reproduction of A.I.D.S. virus

Press, 5 August 1985, Page 20

Rapid reproduction of A.I.D.S. virus

NZPA-Reuter Boston The A.I.D.S. virus contains a genetic control mechanism enabling it to reproduce 1000 times faster than other viruses, making it one. of the worst killers man has faced, said a researcher.

A biochemist, Dr William Haseltine, of Harvard University’s School of Public Health, said in the current issue of the biochemical journal, “Cell,” that discovery of the mechanism may help researchers develop an anti-A.LD.S. vaccine.

Dr Haseltine said about a million Americans may be infected with A.I.D.S. (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) and it is likely that every one of those victims “may die within a 10-year to 15-year time span.”

He said the disease may become the world’s worst epidemic “since the 1918 influenza epidemic or even

the Black Death, the plague that swept Europe in the fifteenth century.”

Dr Haseltine said that when the A.I.D.S. virus infects a peron, it makes a protein control mechanism called a trans-activator that speeds reproduction by as much as 1000 times the normal rate of similar viruses.

He said the A.I.D.S. virus contains genes called switches and enhances which turn on virus reproduction and control the rate of reproduction once a cell in infected.

During early stages of infection, a gene in the A.I.D.S. virus triggers the trans-activator, which is an enzyme or catalyst.

The trans-activator enzyme then binds to a target gene next to the virus’s normal reproductive mechanism.

The target gene in turn stimulates, by a process still under study, a snowball ef-

feet in which the virus reKtes and spreads rapidly gh a victim’s body until the body’s defence mechanism begins countering the spread. “From then on it is a war (between the virus and the body’s immune system),” Dr Haseltine said. “We don’t understand the nature of the war after the initial infection.”

Discovery of the transactivator allows scientists to pinpoint a distinct important enzyme, he said, adding, “We can begin to look for drugs to inhibit the trans-activator.”

Dr Haseltine said the trans-activator may be responsible for numerous cell abnormalties associated with A.1.D.5., including alteration of normal cell gene functions and the possible speeding up of normal cell death.

“It is likely to be the killer part of the virus as well,” he said.