AIDS drug blocks XMRV -ME/CFS & Prostate Cancer

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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14809035

The Salt Lake Tribune

Saturday, May 8, 2010

AIDS drugs fight prostate

cancer-linked virus, U.

scientists say

By Simeon

Bloomberg News Service

AIDS drugs blocked a virus linked to

prostate cancer and chronic fatigue

syndrome, a study showed.

Merck's Isentress fought the virus, XMRV, more

powerfully than 44 other anti-HIV compounds tested

against the pathogen in laboratory experiments,

according to researchers from the University of Utah

and Emory University.

GlaxoKline's Retrovir and Gilead Sciences's

Viread also prevented XMRV from replicating,

according to a statement from Emory Thursday.

XMRV was discovered in 2006 and has since been

found in some prostate tumors and in the blood of

people with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Researchers say its relationship with both diseases

is unclear, and European studies last year failed to

find the virus in chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

Tests of the drugs in patients with XMRV are needed,

said Ila Singh, who led the research at the University

of Utah's medical school.

*We will need to see the results of clinical trials

before these drugs can be used in a clinical setting,*

Singh said in the statement.

XMRV, like HIV, is a retrovirus that gets incorporated

into the genome of the cells it infects. It may trigger

cancer by locating in the cell's genetic material next

to DNA that controls cell growth, disrupting those

genes in a way that allow cells to replicate

uncontrollably, Emory said in the statement.

The virus was found in 44 percent of men with the

most aggressive form of prostate cancer, Singh found

in a study published in September.

XMRV turned up in the blood of two- thirds of

a set of tissue samples taken from people with

chronic fatigue syndrome and 3.7 percent of a

group of healthy individuals, according to

separate research published in the journal

Science in October.

Isentress is the first in a new class of AIDS

medicines that halt HIV by blocking an enzyme called

integrase the virus uses to insert its genetic material

into the nucleus of healthy immune cells.

Merck won U.S. approval in July to sell the drug as an

initial treatment for HIV patients. It was previously

marketed only to patients who had failed all other

therapies.

The research was published in the journal PLoS ONE,

a publication of the Public Library of Science, a San

Francisco-based nonprofit organization. The study

was funded by Emory's Center for AIDS Research and

the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Glaxo and Pfizer Inc. combined their HIV-drug units

last year, with British company owning 85 percent of

the resulting entity, Viiv Healthcare.