HIV immune cell 'crippling method' revealed

The way in which HIV cripples immune cells within the body has been identified by researchers in Germany.

Immune cells need to be able to make contact with each other and move around in order to fend off diseases.

The Virology Department of the Hygiene Institute of the Heidelberg University Hospital has found how the Aids pathogen can stop this occuring.

Dr Oliver Fackler, leader of the study, has suggested that improved methods of treatment could be developed following this discovery.

He explained in the journal Cell Host & Microbe that the HIV Nef protein is responsible for stopping the mobility of immune cells.

"We speculate that the negative effect of Nef on the mobility of T-helper cells has far reaching consequences for the efficient formation of antibodies by B-lymphocytes in the patient," Dr Fackler noted.

"The mechanism we have described could be involved in the increasingly observed malfunction of B-lymphocytes in Aids patients."

Nef is not a usual target for antiretroviral therapy.

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