New Compounds Inhibit HIV in Lab
By Nathan Seppa
When the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) invades a cell, it produces three essential enzymes that direct the takeover. Two of these—reverse transcriptase and protease—have proved susceptible to inhibitor drugs. Mutations in the AIDS virus, however, have made some strains resistant to these medications (SN: 4/24/93, p. 261).
Scientists at Merck Research Laboratories in West Point, Pa., now report the discovery of two new compounds that sabotage the third viral enzyme, called integrase. By blocking integrase, these compounds interfere with the replication cycle of HIV-1, the most common strain of the virus. Although the researchers so far have confined their experiments to cells in laboratory dishes, the compounds are the first to clearly render integrase incapable of splicing viral DNA onto host-cell DNA.