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HIV's Sweet Tooth is its Downfall

posted by CoolHand on Monday June 01 2015, @07:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the diabetic-diseases dept.

AnonTechie writes:

New strategy to halt HIV growth: block its sugar and nutrient pipeline. HIV has a voracious sweet tooth, which turns out to be its Achilles' heel, reports a new study from Northwestern Medicine and Vanderbilt University.

After the virus invades an activated immune cell, it craves sugar and nutrients from the cell to replicate and fuel its wild growth throughout the body.

Scientists discovered the switch that turns on the immune cell's abundant sugar and nutrient pipeline. Then they blocked the switch with an experimental compound, shutting down the pipeline, and, thereby, starving HIV to death. The virus was unable to replicate in human cells in vitro.

The discovery may have applications in treating cancer, which also has an immense appetite for sugar and other nutrients in the cell, which it needs to grow and spread.

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2015/05/hivs-sweet-tooth-is-its-downfall.html

[Abstract]: http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1004864

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @08:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @08:30AM (#190616)

    Yea but how fucked we talking? While you're on the drug that fucks your immune system, are you still contagious? Because if you're not, get your ass to fucking, as many times as you can before you pass out from exhaustion. Just stay away from the common cold cuz it might kill ya.