Step in breakdown of HIV proteins essential to recognition, destruction of infected cells
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 09:30
in Biology & Nature
A key step in the processing of HIV within cells appears to affect how well the immune system's killer T cells recognize and destroy infected cells. Researchers have found that, as HIV proteins are broken down within 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 and the potential effectiveness of T-cell-based vaccines.