New Antiviral Substances Found with HCG

HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) is an approved drug which is prepared from the urine of pregnant women. Some commercial preparations have activity against HIV; however, it is believed that this antiretroviral activity is not due to the HCG itself, but due to other substances--impurities in the commercial product--which are sometimes associated with it. On March 16th a research team at New York University, Harvard Medical School, and the National Institutes of Health announced the purification and identification of three enzymes with anti-HIV activity from the urine of pregnant women, and also found related anti-HIV substances in human milk and some animal products.1

Dr. Robert Gallo, of the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore, has also been working on a separate project to identify one or more antiretroviral substances found in the urine of women in the first weeks of pregnancy2 (see "New Approaches to HIV Treatment: Interview with Robert Gallo, M.D.," AIDS Treatment News #285, December 19, 1997).

If these results are confirmed, they could lead to new strategies for developing antiretroviral drugs.


References

1. Lee-Huang S, Huang PL, Sun Y and others. Lysozyme and RNases as anti-HIV components in beta-core preparations of human chorionic gonadotropin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. March 16, 1999; volume 96, issue 6, pages 2678-2681.

2. Lunardi-Isandar Y, Bryand JL, Blattner WA and others. Effects of a urinary factor from women in early pregnancy on HIV-1, SIV and associated disease. Nature Medicine. April 1998; volume 4, number 4, pages 428-434.