THE virus that causes feline AIDS has helped researchers to develop a
potential treatment for drug-resistant HIV. The new chemical, which is active
against the feline immunodeficiency virus, was found to work well against the
human virus in test-tube experiments.
Drug-resistant HIV shrinks the site where inhibitor drugs bind to the
protease enzymes that replicate the virus. Chi-Huey Wong and his colleagues at
Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, noticed that the feline
equivalent of HIV uses a protease with a naturally small binding site, similar
to drug-resistant HIV. “That enabled us to use feline protease to develop a new
drug,” says Wong, who will report the work in the Journal of the American
Chemical Society.
