Molecular biology of HIV and recent progress in the treatment of AIDS

Abstract

HIV, the causal agent of AIDS, has caused since its emergence 2 decades ago, an enormous challenge for biomedical investigation. Utilising a wide spectrum of mechanisms to interfere with and evade the normal immune response it infects the CD4 lymphocytes via surface receptors. By expressing a high frequency of mutation this allows the virus to repeatedly change its antigenic determinants. HIV types 1 and 2 are lentiviruses, and together with oncornaviruses and espumaviruses form the family of human RNA retroviruses. This article focuses on the current status of the viral molecular biology, the modern diagnostic techniques, such as reverse transcriptase and PCR used to measure vital replication in the infected host. We discuss the lines of treatment explored, which are directed at molecular targets susceptible to pharmalogical intervention and which does not affect celular function. Such as virus-receptor interaction, reverse transcriptase of viral RNA, proviral integration, proteolytic processing of the precursor gag-pol and viral specific transcriptional regulation for the products tat and rev. Finally we discuss aspects in the field of anti-HIV immunization, a pending challenge in the first decade of the 21st century.