BIOL368/F11:Class Journal Week 7

Robert W. Arnold

1. The easiest part of the article was that it continued on the topic of HIV. Now that we have some background and general information, it is easier to get more in depth on a molecular level. I tend to enjoy molecular and it was interesting to come from a project like Markham that dealt with things on a broad scale to something very specified like the V3 region of the gp120 protein.
2. I found the article extremely challenging to read. Hopefully, it is due to lack of sleep and general tiredness as it has been a stressful week so far. I could not get a good understanding of the paper due to the repetition of antibodies, loop regions, residues, conformations, etc. I will definitely need more time and some possible extracurricular research to fully grasp this article. I plan to reread the article and go back over my outline in the next few days.
3. My new question is about the gp160 protein, the one that codes for gp41 and gp 120. I wonder if there could an antibody that could suppress the gp160 from even encoding gp120. If there were, I would be curious to see what the effects would be, whether or not the virus would use other means to attach to receptors. If gp120 is responsible for binding and it is no longer made, I would assume the virus would not be able to infect healthy cells.

Robert W Arnold 19:37, 12 October 2011 (EDT)