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From: sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.bio
Subject: Re: anti RNA reverse transcriptase as HTLV therapy
Message-ID: <622@bbncc5.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Oct-85 10:09:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncc5.622
Posted: Wed Oct  9 10:09:28 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 19:33:50 EDT
References: <17@mit-amt.MIT.EDU>
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 21

> Can someone say whether a human needs to have any RNA
> reverse-transciptase?  If not, could one not design an enzyme specially
> made to disable it, and inhibit HTLV by placing large amounts of said
> enzyme in one's body?  I suppose you'd need to have some "friendly"
> infectious organism in order to synthesize the quantities needed.  Is
> recombinant technology anywhere near able to do this?

A number of new drugs (and some old ones--e.g., suramin, long used in the
treatment of trypanosomiasis) inhibit RNA reverse-transscriptase and are
presently undergoing clinical trials.  Enzymes aren't necessarily needed;
lots of simple (well, simple compared to enzymes) compounds bind to
enzymes and render them inactive.  

One problem with such treatments, at least at the stage of the disease
where they are being administered now, is that although HTLV-III might no
longer be isolated from the patient, the T-cell situation does not seem to
improve.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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