4 February 2010

Imperial College researchers unravel structure of key enzyme in HIV infection

Science|Business

Research lead

Researchers from Imperial College, London and Harvard University, have succeeded in elucidating the structure of integrase, the enzyme which is responsible for copying the DNA of HIV into the cells of people infected by the retrovirus.

Prior to this many researchers have tried to work out the three-dimensional structure of integrase bound to viral DNA. While antiretroviral drugs for HIV work by blocking integrase, it is not understood exactly how these drugs interact with the enzyme, or how to improve them.

In this study, the researchers used a version of integrase borrowed from a little-known retrovirus called Prototype Foamy Virus (PFV), to grow a crystal of the enzyme for analysis. In four years the researchers carried out over 40,000...

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