An international team of researchers, led by Michigan State University, has discovered a new natural defense against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The team's discovery, featured in the current issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, focuses on a protein known as ERManI that that prevents the HIV virus from reproducing itself.

"In earlier studies, we knew that we could interfere with the spread of HIV-1, but we couldn't identify the mechanism that was stopping the process," said Yong-Hui Zheng, MSU associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics and co-author of the study. "We now know that ERManI is an essential key, and that it has the potential as [an] antiretroviral treatment."

Antiretroviral treatments work by keeping HIV in check at low levels, where the virus can do no harm.

The next steps will be to test if HIV resistance can be promoted by increasing ERManI levels, said Zheng, who worked on the study with scientists from the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the University of Georgia.

More than 1.2 million Americans have HIV. Currently, there is no cure, but antiretroviral therapies can only prolong life.

"We see a way to treat this disease by helping the body protect itself," Zheng said. "That's why we continue to move our research forward, seemingly slowly at times, because finding a cure will take years."

This research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health.