The Human Immunodeficiency Virus ( Hiv ) - 992 Words

The Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). HIV and AIDS gravely reduces a person’s immune system allowing them to be more susceptible to serve infections. At the end of 2009, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated 1,148,200 people over the age of 13 in the United States were infected with HIV. The CDC estimates that the incidence every year is 50,000 people. (2) The main treatment therapy is highly active antiretroviral therapy (HARRT). This therapy utilizes nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and protease inhibitors to prevent replication of HIV. This extends the latency period of HIV,†¦show more content†¦HIV uses the coreceptors, CCR5 and C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4), on the CD4+ helper T-cell to infect the cell. (19) After the virus has infected the cell it integrates its own DNA with long terminal rep eats into the host genome. Researchers are currently studying zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) to create this ∆ 32 mutation in the CCR5 and CXCR4 gene as way of preventing further infection. Along with use of ZFNs to remove long terminal repeats of the provirus HIV from the host genome. This review will discuss the molecule techniques used for diagnoses and possible treatment for HIV-1 using ZFNs. How it invades CD4+ helper T- cells HIV first binds to CD4+ helper T-cell with the gp120 protein on the HIV virus and the chemokine receptor, CCR5, on the CD4+ helper T-cell. (6) The viral core then enters the cell and the virion’s protein membrane fuses with the cell membrane. The virus then injects its RNA into the cytoplasm where reverse transcription occurs so synthesize HIV DNA, also called provirus. The provirus is then transferred into the nucleus were it is integrated into the host genome. The infected cell then transcribes and translates the provirus. The viral proteins and some of the viral RNA gather at the edge of the cell membrane and bud off from the infected cell. The newly formed HIV virus goes on to infect other CD4+ helper T-cells, while the infected cell dies. (6) The virus can evolve to use the