Novel approaches to interfere with HIV infection

Several studies are currently ongoing to identify some strategy to care HIV infection: in this post we would like to propose you two novel approaches, based on glycerol monolaurate (GML) and griffithsin. GML is a mild detergent that in high concentration can prevent inflammation and recruitment of CD4 T cells, usually cell- host of HIV virus.

In particular, some experiments have been done on vaginal epithelium –this site is frequently involved in the first phases of HIV infection- and decrease of activation of dendritic cells and, thus, of CD4 T cells, was observed. Infection couldn’t spread and systemic infection was blocked. Some authors noted that really high concentration of GML has to be used to obtain inflammation bock, while lower concentration could have the opposite effect. Griffithsin is a protein derived from algae and has been recently cloned into tobacco plant, thus recombinant variant is now available. This protein impairs the binding of viral particles to glycoprotein at the cell surface and determines HIV death. Interesting results showed a block of infection on human cervical explant by adding recombinant griffithsin protein. These two approach could be considered promising prophylactic treatment because both interfere with the first phases of infection and have quickly gained a great interest of some important pharmaceutical companies.