I am thinking of possible means for killing the HIV virus with a bacteria and subjecting the bacteria to an appropriate antibiotic.
Hi. May be you can consider reading about bacteria from which some of the antibiotics are derived from.There may be part or whole of them which are involved in some anti-viral function. Not too sure if the ones for which inactivated bacterial vaccine has been created may provide some clue.
It is possible to develop an anti-HIV therapeutic based on bacteria.
Mycobacterium bacterial species could be a model for such an approach as these bacteria can enter immune cells. Perhaps this could be an application for a synthetically engineered bacteria.
The bacteria would be engineered to display HIV receptors bacterial surface. This would enable the bacteria to absorb free HIV viral particles. The same displayed HIV receptors could be designed to govern bacterial attachment and entry into virus infected human cells that which display HIV envelope proteins. The bacteria could then be engineered to kill cells infected with HIV.
A major advantage of your suggestion is that this bacteria based anti-viral therapeutic would be self replicating.
In my personaI opinion I disagree with the phrase "kill virus". But maybe would work an intracellular bacteria and tissue specific that block the viral replication mechanisms, or such mentioned Jeffrey, design by synthetic biology "decoy bacteria".
I don't know of any bacteria that can kill HIV specifically, but bacteria have evolved a rudimentary "immune system" that employes restriction enzymes that snip apart various palindromic sequences of the genetic material viruses that often attack them. Maybe you can figure out some restriction enzyme that will destroy a certain important area of the HIV virus's genome, that sounds like a pretty good way to start. If you manage to figure out a bacteria that has these restriction enzymes, maybe they antigen coat and be modified into luring the HIV virus into trying to invade that cell, then it gets destroyed via the bacterial "immune system". Good luck!
One of my mentors suggested that, although very unlikely, nature might make bacteria aquire resistance over time if subjected to HIV. I really appreciate the suggestions so far. Thank you.
Do you have access to what HIV's genome is? I'm not sure what equipment you have access too, but maybe it's possible to engineer a restriction enzyme, if you know how they work. The only other thing I can think of to do is to try and selectively breed bacteria that have to compete for resources with the virus. Does HIV even try and effect bacteria? That's another thing to think about, I guess. This sounds like a very interesting project!
I don't really understand the question, are you trying to get HIV to infect a bacterial cell? Considering it infects only human T lymphocytes, that's a pretty narrow host range and it clearly has very specific targeting requirements. Not to mention that bacterial cell walls are completely different than the plasma membrane of human cells. Not only are restriction enzymes used by bacteria to degrade foreign DNA, but you should also read about the CRISPR/Cas adaptive immune system in bacteria, which works via a guide RNA to target foreign (phage or plasmid, usually) DNA for destruction - sort of like RNAi but with a DNA target. These systems have actually been reconstituted in mammalian cells and so could potentially destroy the HIV genome in any engineered cell type you want. This is published in Science back in January or February of this year, I believe. If you have any questions about CRISPR, I'd be happy to talk. Much easier than engineering a restriction enzyme though I'd imagine.
Just a single comment on the mentor "unlikely suggestion". Taking out all the receptors recognition and viral entry in the cell processes as well as reverse transcription...
Bacteria : prokaryote (RNA polymerase alpha-alpha-beta-beta'-sigma).
HIV : eukaryote (RNApol II drives vira RNA synthesis after reverse transcription and integration of the provirus.
There is clearly an incompatibility among many others ...(alternative splicing) translation regulation, post translationnal modifications, ...
What your mentor suggested, I suppose, is the natural resistance acquired by cells when challenged with viruses. CRISPER/Cas, Abi responses, RNAi, RIG1/IFn signaling. Conversely, viruses adapt to those responses by counteracting these defenses (Anti CRISPR proteins, VSRs ...) leading to a constant evolution (hopefully !)
Best
D
Hi Michael,
Directly I'm not sure but this might interest you (bacteria helping fighting flu virus): http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110314/full/news.2011.159.html
Follow this news. It would be interesting !
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2019/09/10/microbiology-skin-bacteria-frogs-virus/
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