HIV shell investigated

The shell of the HIV virus and how it is held together is being looked at in a new study.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute are investigating how to break up the shell, which is cone-shaped.

As previously discovered, HIV is enclosed within a shell named the cansid, made up of around 250 hexagonal protein building blocks.

Owen Pornillos, first author of the study, suggested that methods such as X-ray crystallography could be effective in altering this structure could prevent the spread of HIV.

Writing in the journal Cell, he said: "Anything that destabilizes the capsid, either by inhibiting assembly or accelerating disassembly should attenuate or even kill the virus."

Professor Mark Yeager from the institute added: "Our work takes advantage of so-called hybrid methods - molecular biology, biochemistry, electron microscopy, and X-ray crystallography."

HIV was first recognised in 1981 by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

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