Modified Protein May Fight AIDS

Friday, January 12th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A genetically engineered protein is able in laboratory tests to keep the AIDS virus from infecting cells. Researchers said it has promise of being used as a powerful therapy against the disease.

Dr. Peter Kim of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the protein, called 5-Helix, is able to disrupt the process that HIV, the AIDS virus, uses to gain entry into cells.

In a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, Kim and his co-authors report that in test-tube experiments 5-Helix works by preventing HIV from fusing with the outer membrane of healthy cells.

``In order to enter a cell, the virus membrane must fuse with the cell membrane,'' said Kim. ``With this protein, the virus can never get into the cell.''

Kim said experiments show the protein works against all common strains of HIV.

Drugs already are being tested that work by blocking entry of HIV into cells, but Kim said those drugs are synthetics created through a chemical process.

The experimental protein 5-Helix was made by manipulating the genes in bacteria, which then produced the protein. Kim said such proteins are cheaper to make and more resistant to degradation once they are injected into the body.

The protein has not been tested in animals, however, and Kim said it is not known if the protein is toxic to the body or will remain in the body long enough to be effective against HIV.