The gp41 fragment (purple) consists of a cytoplasmic tail and a hydrophobic membrane-spanning domain and is joined with the larger gp120 component (blue line) via fusion domain.The gp120 glycoprotein has several glycosylation sites and hypervariable loops (eg. V3), which lead to antigenic variation between viral strains. The CD4-binding region (red) is located toward the center of the complex and consists of components from both the gp120 and gp41 fragment Envelope glycoprotein complex of HIV-1

How it might be stopped (Drug development) RNA is convert into double strand DNA by RT - Drugs called RT inhibitors can interrupt this process.ART inhibitor drugs, such as AZT and 3TC, can disrupt the early stage of viral reproduction Enz integrase incorporates the virus’ genetic material into the T cell’s DNA -Drug called integrase inhibitors, which are designed to halt this process, are in development

Disrupting the assembly line Protease Enz cut viral proteins into shorter pieces so that they can incorporated into new viruses -Protease inhibitors block this stage of reproduction by neutralizing the enzyme. They’re even more effective when combined with RT inhibitors

The high mutation yield of HIV -We know that resistance emerges because of the appearance of many viral variants -The generation of diversity could be because ?

1. Replication is “ error prone” which is what most people say 2. Because the virus makes so many copies of itself each day (which does not mean that it is really more error prone than other retroviruses) or a combination of points (1) and (2)

If the virus is really error prone read paper by L. A. Loeb and J. M. Essigmann et.al Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA “ Lethal mutagenesis of HIV with mutagenic nucleoside analogs” This paper test the hypothesis that a further increase in the mutation rate by promutagenic nucleoside analog would abolish viral replication

HIV binding via CD4 receptor The HIV virus binds to the cell surface of a CD4 + lymphocyte. The binding attachment occurs through an interaction of the viral glycoprotein gp120/gp41 and the CD4 receptor complex on the cell surface

The End Thank you