Chapter 4 Article: Enzymes Cutting HIV

This article explains how scientists have designed a special enzyme that rids the process of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which inserts its genetic material into host DNA. When testing the mutated enzyme (Tre recombinase) on cultured human tissue, it snipped HIV DNA out of chromosomes. Scientists suggest that treatment with similar enzymes could potentially remove infected cells of the virus.

(This picture shows the modified a bacterial enzyme, which is shown as red scissors, that will remove HIV DNA, gray double helix, from infected cells)

First off, why is HIV harmful? Well the articles states that HIV infects the immune system's disease-killing T cells; it does this by converting its genome into double-stranded DNA and using the enzyme integrase to embed that DNA into a T cell's genome. Scientists have adapted bacterial DNA-cutting enzymes for adding and subtracting genes from mice and other multicelled organisms. From this creation, they speculate that they could reverse the process of HIV.

Article:

Designer Enzyme Cuts HIV Out of Infected Cells