Sandbox GGC4

HIV-1 Protease

An infection of the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus can cause Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). HIV attacks the CD4 T cells that are an essential part of the cell-mediated immune response, without which the immune system cannot fight against other infections or cancers, causing AIDS. There are currently 37 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, with approximately 1 million new cases each year along with approximately 1 million deaths a year.

Antiretroviral Therapy is one of the HIV treatments that is most effective as the combinations of different medicines reduce the viral load to become undetectable and non-transmissible and also allows the immune system to recuperate and increase the CD4 count. Protease Inhibitors are one of the FDA approved medicines that target the viral Aspartyl Protease to prevent the HIV from making more copies of itself.

spinqualitylabelsall models Caption for this structure Show:Asymmetric Unit Biological Assembly Drag the structure with the mouse to rotate   Export Animated Image   Print3D This is a default text for your page. Click above on edit this page to modify. Be careful with the < and > signs. You may include any references to papers as in: the use of JSmol in Proteopedia or to the article describing Jmol to the rescue. Function HIV-1 Aspartyl Proteases are homo-dimeric proteolytic enzymes, also known as endopeptidases that allow water molecules to act as nucleophiles during catalysis when activated by 2 aspartic acid residues that make up the active site of the protease. Usually, the active site consists of a triad (ASP-THR-GLY) on each monomer with the catalytic residue being D25. Aspartyl Protease cleaves the Gag and Gag-Pol polyproteins that encode for other structural proteins and enzymes crucial for viral maturation. Hence, HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors have been developed to inhibit the viral protease enzyme to prevent the production and release of mature, infectious HIV virions. Here is how an inhibitor binds to the protease to form a protease-inhibitor complex Structural highlights This is a sample scene created with SAT to color by Group, and another to make a transparent representation of the protein. You can make your own scenes on SAT starting from scratch or loading and editing one of these sample scenes.