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Topical news snippets about viruses that affect people. And other things.
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Anti-HIV drugs: 25 compounds approved within 25 years after the discovery of HIV

Anti-HIV drugs: 25 compounds approved within 25 years after the discovery of HIV | Virology News | Scoop.it

In 2008, 25 years after the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was discovered as the then tentative aetiological agent of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), exactly 25 anti-HIV compounds have been formally approved for clinical use in the treatment of AIDS. These compounds fall into six categories: nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs: zidovudine, didanosine, zalcitabine, stavudine, lamivudine, abacavir and emtricitabine); nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NtRTIs: tenofovir); non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs: nevirapine, delavirdine, efavirenz and etravirine); protease inhibitors (PIs: saquinavir, ritonavir, indinavir, nelfinavir, amprenavir, lopinavir, atazanavir, fosamprenavir, tipranavir and darunavir); cell entry inhibitors [fusion inhibitors (FIs: enfuvirtide) and co-receptor inhibitors (CRIs: maraviroc)]; and integrase inhibitors (INIs: raltegravir). These compounds should be used in drug combination regimens to achieve the highest possible benefit, tolerability and compliance and to diminish the risk of resistance development.

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Phages hijack a host's defence

Phages hijack a host's defence | Virology News | Scoop.it

"Bacteria have developed a formidable arsenal of sophisticated strategies to neutralize viruses, but phages always seem to find a way to evolve, persist and abound. Studies of the complex evolutionary dynamics between phages and bacteria led to the discovery of a widespread bacterial defence system called CRISPR/Cas. On page 489 of this issue, Seed et al. report the remarkable finding that some phages that infect the bacterial pathogen Vibrio cholerae have also acquired a functional CRISPR/Cas system in their own genome which allows them to neutralize an unrelated antivirus system in their bacterial host"

 

Bacteriophage graphic courtesy of Russell Kightley Media

Ed Rybicki's insight:

So many people have pointed this out to me today that I just HAD to do something on it.

 

This is a seriously big deal, in our understanding of the arms race between viruses and their hosts: here we have a virus that is circumventing a widespread antiviral defence system in bacteria, by using elements of the system against the bacteria - and it can adapt to match its hijacked system to that of the host.

 

Not only stranger than we imagine; sometimes stranger than we CAN imagine - or just way more sophisticated than we thought.

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