Most HIV
treatments focus on the use of anti-retroviral drugs to decrease the amount of
virus in the body to almost undetectable levels. These drugs frequently target
the enzymes that HIV needs to replicate itself inside of cells in order to slow
replication and decrease viral load.
HIV has a high rate of mutation compared to a mammal such as ourselves, and it will often mutate in enough to develop resistance to certain anti-retroviral drugs. Mutations in viral RNA that change the proteins produced in cells or mutations that change how HIV enter the cell can lead to drug resistance. In order to slow down the development of drug resistance many patients are put on combination therapies, which use multiple medications to keep the viral load in a person low and stop virus replication at many steps.
With combination
therapies the development rate of resistance is slowed, however there are
worries that viruses will still mutate fast enough to outpace our ability to develop
new drugs. As HIV drug resistance becomes more common it is likely that this
will eventually be the case. New treatments that attack HIV in radically
different ways are being developed to hopefully find a long lasting and safe
treatment for HIV. One such treatment involves the use of RNAi or RNA
interference. This involves using microRNA and siRNA to target conserved genes
in HIV with little mutation, binding and destroying the viral mRNA to stop production
of the virus effectively and efficiently. The only problem with this research
is delivering the RNA necessary for interference to every cell that needs it.
Attempts have
been made to create viral vectors to do this, however the results were often
underwhelming and at times dangerous. This brings me to nanotechnology. The
latest research is delving into multiple types of nanotechnology to safely
deliver RNA to targeted cells. This technology includes artificial liposomes,
polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers, and inorganic nanoparticles. Finding
something that can deliver the RNA will allow for advances in many medications
and may help to put a major dent in the spread of HIV worldwide.
Let me know
what you think. Will nanotechnology be able to advance fast enough to find a
transport system for RNAi? If you want to do more research on this topic you
can start on the article below.
Nanotechnology
Approaches for the Delivery of Exogenous siRNA for HIV Therapy
Simeon K.
Adesina
and Emmanuel O.
Akala
Mol.
Pharmaceutics
DOI: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.5b00335
Nanotechnology is amazing! Did you know that nanotechnology is used in everything from extending the life of tennis balls to extending the life of socks?! This is good news to me because my poor socks tend to be more useful as strainers in no time (in my defense I walk a TON). I digress however, I do believe in time nanotechnology will become a dependable transport system. Will in be able to do so fast enough? For those with lost loved ones, I would say we are already behind in battle.
ReplyDeleteMy answer to your question is, with the rate at which our technology is advancing, it does not seem unreasonable that we will be able to develop nanotechnology that can find a transport system for RNA.
ReplyDeleteDelivery is the problem with lots of proposed gene therapies...we're big complex eukaryotes, with a fairly comprehensive defense against anything that is non-self. Imagine how complex it would be if we didn't have a circulatory system, or if we had cell walls.
ReplyDelete