Editor's Summary
1 June 2006
Blocking HIV
When the AIDS virus HIV-1 infects a macrophage, thereby reducing the cell's effectiveness in the immune response, it integrates viral cDNA into the chromatin. This suggests that the cell's nuclear membrane could be critical to the infection process. That is confirmed with the finding that HIV has difficulty infecting the macrophages lacking emerin, a component of the inner nuclear envelope. Small molecules that inhibit the interaction between emerin and viral cDNA might therefore help block HIV infection.
News and Views: Virology: HIV goes nuclear
HIV-1 replicates itself by integrating into its host cell's DNA. Studies in cell culture reveal that nuclear-membrane proteins aid engagement of the viral DNA with that of its host before integration.
Min Li & Robert Craigie
doi:10.1038/441581a
Letter: The inner-nuclear-envelope protein emerin regulates HIV-1 infectivity
Jean-Marc Jacque & Mario Stevenson
doi:10.1038/nature04682
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (615K) | Supplementary information
