Selenium may slow march of AIDS

December 01, 2008

Increasing the production of naturally occurring proteins that contain selenium in human blood cells slows down multiplication of the AIDS virus, according to biochemists.

"We have found that increasing the expression of proteins that contain selenium negatively affects the replication of HIV," said K. Sandeep Prabhu, Penn State assistant professor of immunology and molecular toxicology. "Our results suggest a reduction in viral replication by at least 10-fold."

Selenium is a micronutrient that the body needs to maintain normal metabolism. Unlike other nutrients, which bind to certain proteins and modulate the protein's activity, selenium gets incorporated into proteins in the form of an amino acid called selenocysteine.

These proteins - selenoproteins - are especially important in reducing the stress caused by an infection, thereby slowing its spread.

Upon infecting a person, the virus quickly degrades selenoproteins so that it can replicate efficiently. It is unclear just how the virus is able to silence these proteins but Prabhu and his colleagues believe that stress inflicted on cells by the rapidly dividing virus, which produces a key protein known as Tat, is the likely culprit.

Tat is one of about 14 odd proteins produced by HIV during the first stage of infection. The job of these proteins is to trigger the expression of all the other genes that the virus needs to sustain itself. In addition, Tat also plays a key role in helping the virus replicate.

One of the proteins that targets Tat is a selenoprotein known as TR1.

"Since HIV targets the selenoproteins, we thought that the logical way to deal with the virus is to increase the expression of such proteins in the body," explained Prabhu, whose team's findings are outlined this week (Nov. 28) in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Researchers first isolated blood cells from healthy human volunteers who did not have HIV, and infected those cells with the virus. Next, they added tiny amounts of a selenium compound - sodium selenite - into the cell culture to see the effect on viral replication.

Results from the tests indicate that the addition of selenium inhibits the replication of HIV at least 10-fold, compared to cell cultures in which no selenium is added. When the researchers selectively reduced production of the selenium containing TR1 protein, they observed a 3.5-fold increase in viral replication.

"This confirms that while increasing the expression of TR1 has a negative impact on the replication of HIV, reducing it helps the virus replicate more efficiently," explained Prabhu. He believes that TR1 works by upsetting the chemical structure of Tat, which in turn reduces the virus' ability to replicate.

"Once we fully understand the function of these selenium proteins, it will give us a handle to come up with more effective drugs," said Prabhu, whose work is partly funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Penn State

---

---

	Selenium 1.0 Testing Tools: Beginner's Guide by David Burns (Author) Written with a fast-paced but friendly and engaging approach, this Packt Beginner's Guide is designed to be placed alongside the computer as your guide and mentor. Step-by-step tutorials are bolstered by explanations of the reasoning behind what you are doing. You will quickly pick up the necessary skills, tips, and tricks for creating successful tests for your web applications with practical examples that help you to learn by experiment and play. If you are a Software quality assurance professional, software project manager, or software developer interested in developing automated testing in web based applications, then this book is definitely for you.
	Selenium Simplified by Alan John Richardson (Author) The updated second edition of the popular tutorial guide to automated testing. Selenium is one of the most popular open-source automated testing tools available today. Understanding Selenium-RC and writing automated tests in a programming language are sought after skills on the job market and a great way of maximising the benefit from automated testing. Contrary to the beliefs of many testers, learning to code does not have to be complicated or hard. "Selenium Simplified" takes you through the process of installing and learning to use all the basic tools needed to write automated tests using Java as the programming language. Written in a tutorial style, this book helps you learn to code even if you haven't programmed before. No time is wasted on the theory of automation or padding about...
	Selenium Simplified by Alan John Richardson (Author) Selenium is one of the most popular open-source automated testing tools available today. Understanding Selenium-RC and writing automated tests in a programming language are sought after skills on the job market and a great way of maximising the benefit from automated testing. Contrary to the beliefs of many testers, learning to code does not have to be complicated or hard. "Selenium Simplified" takes you through the process of installing and learning to use all the basic tools needed to write automated tests using Java as the programming language. Written in a tutorial style, this book helps you learn to code even if you haven't programmed before. No time is wasted on the theory of automation or padding about the tools. This book focuses on the practical knowledge needed...
	Selenium Testing Tools Interview Questions You'll Most Likely Be Asked by Vibrant Publishers (Author) Selenium Testing Tools Interview Questions You'll Most Likely Be Asked is a perfect companion to stand ahead above the rest in today’s competitive job market. Rather than going through comprehensive, textbook-sized reference guides, this book includes only the information required immediately for job search to build an IT career. This book puts the interviewee in the driver's seat and helps them steer their way to impress the interviewer. Includes: a) 175 Selenium Testing Tools Interview Questions, Answers and Proven Strategies for getting hired as an IT professional b) Dozens of examples to respond to interview questions c) 51 HR Questions with Answers and Proven strategies to give specific, impressive, answers that help nail the interviews ...
	Selenium: Are You Getting Enough to Reduce Your Risk of Cancer? by Edgar Drake (Author) In this timely, fact-intensive book, the author interprets 30 years of peer-reviewed scientific and medical research, including five human clinical trials in the United States and China, which convincingly demonstrate that taking a daily supplement of the essential mineral selenium, with no other changes in lifestyle, can reduce total cancer incidence in at-risk human populations by approximately 37%. With documentation from the literature, the author establishes that selenium is non-uniformly distributed in the United States, has powerful anticancer properties, naturally occurs in several chemical forms that produce different metabolic products differing in their cancer-preventive potency, causes premalignant and malignant cells to commit suicide, is affected by supplements of other...
	How Google Tests Software by James A. Whittaker (Author), Jason Arbon (Author), Jeff Carollo (Author) Pioneering the Future of Software Test   Do you need to get it right, too? Then, learn from Google. Legendary testing expert James Whittaker, until recently a Google testing leader, and two top Google experts reveal exactly how Google tests software, offering brand-new best practices you can use even if you’re not quite Google’s size…yet!   Breakthrough Techniques You Can Actually Use   Discover 100% practical, amazingly scalable techniques for analyzing risk and planning tests…thinking like real users…implementing exploratory, black box, white box, and acceptance testing…getting usable feedback…tracking issues…choosing and creating tools…testing “Docs & Mocks,” interfaces, classes, modules, libraries, binaries, services, and infrastructure…reviewing...
	Automated Software Testing Interview Questions You'll Most Likely Be Asked (Job Interview Questions) by Vibrant Publishers (Author) Automated Software Testing Interview Questions You'll Most Likely Be Asked is a perfect companion to stand ahead above the rest in today’s competitive job market. Rather than going through comprehensive, textbook-sized reference guides, this book includes only the information required immediately for job search to build an IT career. This book puts the interviewee in the driver's seat and helps them steer their way to impress the interviewer. Includes: a) 200 Automated Software Testing Interview Questions, Answers and Proven Strategies for getting hired as an IT professional b) Dozens of examples to respond to interview questions c) 51 HR Questions with Answers and Proven strategies to give specific, impressive, answers that help nail the interviews...
	Implementing Automated Software Testing: How to Save Time and Lower Costs While Raising Quality by Elfriede Dustin (Author), Thom Garrett (Author), Bernie Gauf (Author) “This book fills a huge gap in our knowledge of software testing. It does an excellent job describing how test automation differs from other test activities, and clearly lays out what kind of skills and knowledge are needed to automate tests. The book is essential reading for students of testing and a bible for practitioners.” —Jeff Offutt, Professor of Software Engineering, George Mason University “This new book naturally expands upon its predecessor, Automated Software Testing, and is the perfect reference for software practitioners applying automated software testing to their development efforts. Mandatory reading for software testing professionals!” —Jeff Rashka, PMP, Coauthor of Automated Software Testing and Quality Web Systems Testing accounts for an...
	An Introduction to Testing Web Applications with twill and Selenium by C. Brown (Author), Gheorghe Gheorghiu (Author), Jason Huggins (Author) This Short Cut is an introduction to building automated web tests using two tools, twill and Selenium. twill is a simple web scripting language that can be used to automate web tests, while Selenium is a web testing framework that runs in any browser and can be used to test complex web sites that make extensive use of JavaScript. The best way to use this Short Cut is to run through the examples. We expect that within an hour you can start writing your own functional tests in either twill or Selenium, and within a day you will understand most, if not all, of the possibilities and the limitations of these tools.
	JUnit in Action, Second Edition by Petar Tahchiev (Author), Felipe Leme (Author), Vincent Massol (Author), Gary Gregory (Author) When JUnit was first introduced a decade ago by Kent Beck and Erich Gamma, the Agile movement was in its infancy, "Test Driven Development" was unknown, and unit testing was just starting to move into the typical developer's vocabulary. Today, most developers acknowledge the benefits of unit testing and rely on the increasingly sophisticated tools now available. The recently released JUnit 4.5 represents the state of the art in unit testing frameworks, and provides significant new features to improve the Java development process.JUnit in Action, Second Edition is an up-to-date guide to unit testing Java applications (including Java EE applications) using the JUnit framework and its extensions. This book provides techniques for solving real-world problems such as testing AJAX applications,...