New York: In a significant discovery, researchers have identified a new protein that holds promise for the next-generation of anti-HIV drugs.

The team at University of California, Berkeley, and the National Institutes of Health have focused on Nef – a fourth protein that hijacks host proteins and is essential to HIV’s lethality.

They captured a high-resolution snapshot of Nef bound with a main host protein, and discovered a portion of the host protein.

By blocking the part of a key host protein to which Nef binds, it may be possible to slow or stop HIV, said scientists.

“We have imaged the molecular details for the first time,” said structural biologist James H. Hurley, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology.

“Having these details in hand puts us in striking distance of designing drugs to block the binding site and, in doing so, block HIV infectivity,” he claimed.

“For many patients, current drug therapies have transformed HIV infection into a chronic condition that doesn’t lead to AIDS. But anything we can develop to further interfere with replication and propagation of the virus would help keep it in check until we find a way to completely eliminate the virus from the body,” explained Hurley.

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