ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 31, 1996 TAG: 9601310054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
Whey, the watery dairy product best known from the tale of Little Miss Muffet, might provide a new way to keep the AIDS virus from infecting people during sex.
A modified version of a protein extracted from whey blocked the AIDS virus from infecting cells in the test tube, researchers report.
If further tests go well, the modified protein might be put in a cream or foam that could be used along with condoms, said researcher A. Robert Neurath.
Neurath is head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Virology at the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute of the New York Blood Center. He and colleagues reported the test-tube result in the February issue of Nature Medicine.
An AIDS expert said the work left some key questions unanswered.
Whey is produced when milk is made into cheese. Most of it is then used in other products, including ice cream, bread, pie crust and canned soups.
For the new work, scientists modified a whey protein called beta-lactoglobulin to produce a substance they named B69. They found that B69 latched onto a protein structure called CD4 on the surface of cells. That kept the AIDS virus from using CD4 as an entryway into the cells.
In the test tube, B69 blocked infection by free-floating HIV and by HIV traveling in infected cells, Neurath said.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 35 linesby CNB