HIV-1 hijacks immune cells

This is a news story, published by ScienceDaily, that relates primarily to RNA news.

biology news

For more biology news, you can click here:

more biology news

ScienceDaily news

For more news from ScienceDaily, you can click here:

more news from ScienceDaily

About the Otherweb

Otherweb, Inc is a public benefit corporation, dedicated to improving the quality of news people consume. We are non-partisan, junk-free, and ad-free. We use artificial intelligence (AI) to remove junk from your news feed, and allow you to select the best science news, business news, entertainment news, and much more. If you like biology news, you might also like this article about

viral circular RNAs interact

. We are dedicated to bringing you the highest-quality news, junk-free and ad-free, about your favorite topics. Please come every day to read the latest stable circular RNAs news, HIV biology news, biology news, and other high-quality news about any topic that interests you. We are working hard to create the best news aggregator on the web, and to put you in control of your news feed - whether you choose to read the latest news through our website, our news app, or our daily newsletter - all free!

circular RNAs

ScienceDaily

•

Science

'Loop'hole: HIV-1 hijacks human immune cells using circular RNAs

Summary

Nutrition label

76% Informative

'Loophole' is a biological process that involves circular RNAs and marks the first experimental evidence of HIV-1 generating them from an integrated retroviral genome.

CircRNAs form a "loop" or circle inside cells -- unlike regular RNA molecules that are shaped like a straight line.

This looped shape makes circRNAs much more stable and enables them to act like sponges -- soaking up microRNAs (miRNAs) and preventing them from doing their usual jobs.

The research team plans to explore new treatments that use special molecules called antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to block HIV's circRNAs.

They'll test this approach in models of long-term infection and in cells from people living with HIV.

CircRNAs could also be used as markers of infection or as new targets for drugs.

VR Score

Informative language

Neutral language

Article tone

formal

Language

English

Language complexity

Offensive language