Researchers have made a breakthrough in HIV research, potentially leading to better treatments for HIV, according to BiologyNews.net. Researchers from Imperial College London and Harvard University grew a high quality crystal that reveals the structure of integrase, an enzyme found in retroviruses like HIV. HIV uses integrase to paste a copy of its genetic information into an infected person’s DNA. The new study, funded by the Medical Research Council and the U.S. government agency National Institutes of Health, enabled researchers to better understand how antiretroviral drugs for HIV function by blocking integrase.

The researchers used a version of integrase borrowed from a retrovirus called Prototype Foamy Virus (PFV) to grow the crystal as it is similar to its HIV counterpart. During a four-year study, the researchers carried out over 40,000 trials which allowed them to grow seven kinds of crystals, only one of which good enough quality to allow determination of the three-dimensional structure.

After growing the crystal, the researchers used the giant synchrotron machine at the Diamond Light Source in South Oxfordshire to collect X-ray diffraction data from these crystals, revealing the structure. The crystals were soaked in solutions of the integrase inhibiting drugs Raltegravir (also known as Isentress) and Elvitegravir and then researchers watched how the drugs worked to inactivate integrase.

The discovery will show researchers how existing drugs work and how to both improve them and cut resistance.