HIV is known to enter a cell via CD4 and by the co-receptors CXCR4 and CCR5. Previously researchers believed the envelope of the virus bound to a cell at the membrane surface and fused, allowing entrance of the viral and delivery of the genomic contents to the cytoplasm of the cell. New research, published by Melikyan et al in Cell this month, has opened the door to the field and contradicted the assumptions of many previous researchers. The paper shows that HIV enters the cell through endocytosi, after binding the receptors, and then fuses through the endosome to release the contents of the virus into the cytoplasm of a cell. Hopefully this research will open the door into a better understanding of the virus and allow new potential therapeutic targets, not previously considered, to prevent infection from the virus.

Original paper: Cell Volume 137, Issue 3, 433-444, 1 May 2009:

HIV Enters Cells via Endocytosis and Dynamin-Dependent Fusion with Endosomes

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While several groups have shown abberant micro-RNA (or miRNA) expression in cancers, a group from Washington University Medical Centre have shown a direct-link of miRNA's as the primary course of a paediatric lung tumor. Pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB) is an inherited cancer syndrome and the paper in Science by Hill et al. shows a link between the disease and families harbouring a heterozygous mutation in DICER1, the protein responsible for cleaving/processing miRNAs. They propose that loss of DICER1 expression in the epithelial tissue of the tumour alters proliferation of the surrounding mesenchymal tissue. This is the first paper showing a direct causal link between miRNA's and an associated cancer.

It is not unusual for the disease to be a result of a heterozygous mutation, as in the animal model a deletion of DICER1 is lethal due to the role miRNAs play during natural development. It is expected that DICER1 plays a similar in human development, and abberant DICER1 expression in a paediatric cancer is fitting with the hypothesised role for the protein.

Original article:

DICER1 Mutations in Familial Pleuropulmonary Blastoma

D. Ashley Hill ^1*, J. Ivanovich ², John R. Priest ³, Christina A. Gurnett ², Louis P. Dehner ², David Desruisseau ², Jason A. Jarzembowski ⁴, Kathryn A. Wikenheiser-Brokamp ⁵, Brian K. Suarez ², Alison J. Whelan ², Gretchen Williams ⁶, Dawn Bracamontes ¹, Yoav Messinger ⁶, Paul J. Goodfellow ²

Published Online June 25, 2009
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1174334

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26320744_DICER1_Mutations_in_Familial_Pleuropulmonary_Blastoma