Step in breakdown of HIV proteins essential to recognition, destruction of infected cells
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 01:30
in Health & Medicine
A key step in the processing of HIV within cells appears to affect how effectively the immune system's killer T cells can recognize and destroy infected cells. Researchers at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have found that – as HIV proteins are broken down within cells, a process that should lead to labeling infected cell for destruction by CD8 T cells – there is a great variability in the stability of resulting protein segments, variations that could significantly change how well cells are recognized by the immune system. Their report appears in the June Journal of Clinical Investigation.
