Researchers advance quest to infect lab mice with HIV

Researchers are reporting progress in the quest to infect mice with HIV, which would allow more widespread use of the common laboratory animal in studying the virus that causes AIDS.

An incremental step reported by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, is the latest in a decade-long effort. Details appeared Sunday in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Further breakthroughs are expected in coming weeks, researchers hinted.

While mice are the laboratory animal of choice for studying many diseases, researchers largely have had to rely on chimpanzees and gibbons for work on HIV and AIDS.

Some mice, genetically modified so their own immune systems have been replaced with elements of their human equivalents, can be infected with HIV. However, the virus only replicates in the "human" cells within the mouse.

Otherwise, the replication of HIV in mice is blocked at multiple points.

Previous work had overcome the barrier that blocked the entry of the virus into mouse cells.

The new work reported Sunday showed success in modifying mouse cells in a way that allows HIV-1, the predominant type of the virus, to replicate, although not at the same levels seen in humans, co-author Yong-Hui Zheng said.

Additional roadblocks likely exist, he said.

Harris Goldstein, director of the Center for AIDS Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said the study lays out the structural basis for one of the blocks that prevent efficient HIV-1 replication in mice. Goldstein was not connected with the study.

Nathaniel Landau, an associate professor at the Salk Institute who also was unconnected with the study, stressed the study "will not solve the problem. It is maybe a step along the way."

Worldwide, 42 million people had HIV/AIDS as of December, according to the United Nations. The UN estimates 3.1 million died of AIDS last year.

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Nature Cell Biology: http://www.nature.com/ncb/