Re: new class of medicine

[Guest guest]

This stuff is great. I wish the FDA would fast track this. Well, I

wish they would double fast track *everything*, and quadruple fast

track this.

One thing not mentioned in that paper is that some lytic substances

like this might also tend to clear out stressed cells, such as

persistently infected cells.

The article is a lil misleading about HIV, I think. HIV must vary its

antigens and keep reproducing to stay ahead of immune system attack,

so " slowing it down " (way down) essentially IS " hunting it down and

killing it, " or is just as good. I dont see why this stuff would

necessarily be more effective than HAART, tho it certainly is possible

and I'm no expert on this stuff. It might also eventually be able to

partially replace HAART with fewer side effects, or not. Its biggest

importance might be if we eventually see the much-dreaded widespread

emergence of multi-HAART-resistant HIV strains (a potential disaster

whose likelihood I know little about, and which will hopefully never

happen). Resistance to lytic drugs like this might be harder for HIV

to acquire.

>

> From a CanLyme announcement:

>

> A new class of medicine is being developed that may have far

reaching

> effects for viral and bacterial infection.

> see: www.canlyme.com/aids_cure.html

>

[Guest guest]

Wow, what great news.

--- In infections , Kate <KateDunlay@...>

wrote:

>

> From a CanLyme announcement:

>

> A new class of medicine is being developed that may have far reaching

> effects for viral and bacterial infection.

> see: www.canlyme.com/aids_cure.html

>

[Guest guest]

All I understand from this article is that the substances they are

talking about act like substances produced by our own immune systems.

, what is this stuff? Is it stuff that chronic Lyme sufferers may

not be producing? Like, I know my complement C3 is low. Immune system

seems to be on overdrive but something's not working right. I thought

the blame was to be placed on the bacteria for manipulating the system

and hiding and all that. Does this promising new treatment have the

potential to get around these problems?

- Kate

On Wednesday, February 8, 2006, at 06:55 PM, wrote:

> www.canlyme.com/aids_cure.html

[Guest guest]

Anything I say about viruses I learned in school, and I shudder to

think how mixed up I'd be about bacteria if I assumed that what I'd

heard about them in school was fullsome.

That said, HIV and many other viruses are enveloped, meaning they are

wrapped up in a sphere of membrane taken from the host cell. These

drugs tear up membrane. Viral membrane, bacterial membrane. How they

achieve specificity I dont know. Most bacteria have a negative

surface charge, and that is part of it. Our red cells also have a

negative surface charge, however.

You can find natural molecules like this in your humors, inside

phagosomes, and I think in cytoplasm. And they are found all the way

down in insects and possibly even lower animals. (As are some other

natural antimicrobial molecules that have targets other than the

membrane.)

I think most bacteria that can hold up in a person have some level of

resistance to these natural membrane-lytic molecules, just as they

have some level of resistance to the complement system. However,

phagocytes are designed to blast the hell out of bacteria with acid,

oxidative species, membrane-lytic molecules, etc. I'm not sure if any

bacteria can actually survive this onslaught, as opposed to dodging

the onslaught (like a rickettsia escaping from the phagosome into the

cytoplasm) or messing up the signaling that sets off the onslaught,

like M. tuberculosis does.

iella burnetti resides in an acid phagosome - fully acidified, I

think. So it can take the severe acid. But maybe it attenuates the

production of oxidative species and membrane-lytic molecules.

Point is, if you take a membrane-lytic molecule drug which can enter

infected cells, any bacterium which is accustomed to being able to

attenuate the bodys delivery of natural membrane-lytic molecules,

will now have to face those lytic molecules after all. And if it is

sufficiently sensitive to that particular molecule, that bacterium is

toast. As it has no adaptation to deal with large concentrations of

these molecules.

Another sort of bug might not attenuate the bodys production of lytic

molecules, but might simply able to cope with them - for example, a

bug might have an enzyme in its membrane which can cut the lytic

molecules in half. This bug might not be suceptible to a lytic

molecule drug.

In practice, I think both strategies (prevent and cope) are used in

varying degrees by bacteria to deal with exposure to these molecules.

So, best case scenario is that lytic molecule drugs will turn out to

be able to toast all bacteria. Worst case, it might not be much of an

advance. We dont really know. I hope they will NOT focus on making

drugs for acute infections, where penetration of human cells may(?)

not be very important. But the fact is alot of the impetus for

development of these drugs has come from the threat posed by multi-

resistant hospital infections such as MRSA.

A great thing about these is that they dont depend on bacterial

metabolism in order to kill, which all current abx apparantly do.

Look at pulmonary M. avium disease. An accepted bacteriosis, but

about as hard to get rid of as CFS/arthritis/MS/whatever. OK, put M.

avium in a broth and grow it rapidly. You can toast it with a number

of drugs, quinolones, whatever. You can whack growing M. avium back

by a log a day or more (a log means 10-fold). This aint happening in

human M. avium disease, and hypometabolism by the bacteria is the

best explanation.

Lytic molecules dont have anything to do with this. Most of them seem

to get into the membrane and either glob up, or crystalize into a

channel (no one seems to be sure). The membrane then loses integrity.

Its like popping a ballon. Whether the cell is dormant or growing

like crazy wont make a difference.

>

> > www.canlyme.com/aids_cure.html

>