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Researchers have found the human immunodeficiency virus' weakest point
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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Science has long known that the AIDS virus can evade attacks by the human immune system and drugs by constantly mutating. But some components of the virus are so important to it that changing them would be akin to suicide - and these weak points could be the ideal target for an antiviral vaccine. Typically, a vaccine is a preparation of a killed/weakened pathogen, on which the immune system "practices" the effectiveness of the attack. Previous vaccines against immunodeficiency included viral proteins that the immune system had to remember and, if HIV entered the body, attack it until it was completely destroyed. But, as it turned out, HIV mutates rapidly, so much so that the immune system no longer recognizes it. In other words, in the case of HIV, immunologists were faced with the problem of choosing a target at which to "shoot" the vaccine.
In the course of studying viral proteins, scientists came to the conclusion that the immunodeficiency virus has particularly important proteins that it does not change under any circumstances. It is precisely these constant proteins that can become an ideal target for an HIV vaccine.
It is worth mentioning that the random matrix theory, a mathematical method widely used in quantum physics, was used to search for such amino acid clusters. It was thanks to it that the researchers were able to determine that the protein called Gag is the most constant component of the viral particle. Several groups of amino acids were found in this protein, changes in which cause the greatest harm to the virus, and the most conservative of these groups was selected.
It turned out that the amino acids of this group are responsible for the contacts between protein molecules that protect the genetic material of HIV: changes in this area would lead to the fact that the viral particle simply could not assemble.
Clinical studies also confirmed the theoretical assumptions of scientists, as patients who were able to resist the virus even without medication had a large number of T-lymphocytes that attacked the Gag cluster in the viral protein. The virus could not escape the attack, since mutations in this zone would be tantamount to suicide for it.
In the future, researchers want to find several more of these same weak points in the virus - and then it will be possible to develop a vaccine that truly leaves HIV no chance.
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