Healthcare Technology Featured Article

September 14, 2011

Glowing Cats May Help Researchers Fight HIV with Gene Therapy


Just in time for Halloween! Cats that glow in the dark!

Actually, they only glow under black light and they were created to help scientists better understand how it might be possible to fight the HIV virus in humans via gene therapy.

A team of researchers from the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. and Yamaguchi University in Japan have genetically altered cats by inserting two artificially altered genes into cat oocytes (eggs) and implanting the resulting embryos into mother cats for gestation. The first altered gene is an antiviral gene derived from a rhesus macaque (monkey). The second is a gene that produces the fluorescent protein GFP which is normally found in jellyfish.

The result is a kitten that glows a little under black light, though the glowing effect isn't for fun – it's a kind of genome-based immunization strategy with a goal of helping fight FIV, a cat version of the human HIV virus. Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) causes a kind of feline AIDS in cats just as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes AIDS in humans: by depleting the body's infection-fighting T-cells, reported USAToday this week. With a better understanding of how to fight FIV with gene therapy, scientists hope to learn how to do the same in humans with HIV.

While researchers still have a long way to go with the project, they've already seen some encouraging results. The cats born with the altered genes have already shown reduced replication of the FIV virus. Scientists plan to expose cats treated with the gene therapy to the FIV virus to see if that resistance extends to the full force of the infection. If those results are as promising as they have been so far, it could mean great strides in efforts to fight HIV in humans in addition to helping conquer FIV in cats.

“One of the best things about this biomedical research is that it is aimed at benefiting both human and feline health,” said Eric Poeschla, one of the researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “It can help cats as much as people.”

The new research was published this week in “Nature Methods.”

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Tracey Schelmetic is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone. To read more of Tracey's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell
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