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New insights 

into HIV  

The green fluorescent protein, 

which earned the Nobel Prize in 

Chemistry in 2008 for its finders, 

has recently helped advance 

research into AIDS. Using it, 

researchers from the universities 

of Munich and Heidelberg (DE) 

were for the first time able to 

observe in detail and in real time 

the process of replication of HIV-1, 

and how these new viruses are 

released to infect neighbouring 

cells. For this, biophysicist Don 

Lamb of the University of Munich, 

who led the research, used cell 

culture containing eight of the 

nine genes of HIV-1, manipulating 

one of them to get a fluorescent 

form of the GAG (group-specific 

antigen) protein which makes 

up the virus capsid (skin). 

The study, part-financed by the 

Seventh Framework Programme 

and published in PloS (Public 

Library of Science) Pathogens, 

shows that once the HIV-1 assembly 

process has been activated, the 

host cell membrane is covered 

with viruses within just one or 

two hours. Each is individually 

assembled – not from a reusable 

budding platform, as is suspected 

to exist for other viruses, but from 

viral proteins synthesised by the 

infected cell in around 25 minutes. 

The researchers were also able to 

determine whether the viruses 

visible on a cell’s surface were 

© I

nserm/Philippe Roingear

d

© I

nserm/M

ichel Depar

dieu