Editor’s Selections: Improving the potency of AIDS treatments, and not judging a cell by its coat
February 5th, 2010 Editor's Selections No Comments
Vincent Racaniello selects several notable posts each week from molecular and cellular biology and virology. He blogs at virology blog.
- HIV protease inhibitors act by binding to the active site in the hollow center of the molecule. The compounds still fit into the active site of drug resistant proteases but do not remain there. A new type of drug might be able to bind to alternate sites on the protease, enabling the current anti-HIV drugs to remain in the active site.
- Eukaryotes shuttle molecules about the cell by using membrane coat proteins that can fuse together to create vesicles that bud from one membrane, and fuse with another. Membrane coat-like proteins have been found in bacteria by searching for proteins with a similar three-dimensional structure.
I’ll be back next Friday with more selections.
