Scientists Exploring Tree Extract as Research Avenue in AIDS Battle

A drug extracted from an Australian chestnut tree hampers the AIDS virus’ ability to infect and kill blood cells in a test tube, and it may represent a new class of possible AIDS drugs, scientists report.

They did not know if the process would work in the body of an infected person.

Researchers from the University of Amsterdam and the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam report the new work in today’s issue of the British journal Nature.

Castanospermine apparently sabotages a key protein of the AIDS virus, reducing its infectivity and its ability to make infected cells kill others by fusing with them, the researchers said.

Rob A. Gruters, chief of the research group, reported that the protein was altered when it was exposed to chemicals that prevented it from processing sugar molecules.

Castanospermine and a second compound, 1-deoxynojirimycin, greatly reduced the ability of those cells to fuse with uninfected cells, the scientists wrote. In addition, the infectivity of AIDS viruses produced by the infected cells was reduced about a hundredfold, they said.