HIV antibodies kill sleeping AIDS pathogens

Research: Antibodies kill sleeping HI viruses

11/01/2014

Although the treatment of HIV infection has made rapid progress in recent years, it has not yet been possible to eradicate inactive HIV completely from the body. US researchers now seem to have found a way to kill these sleeping viruses with a targeted therapy.

Attack sleeping viruses
The treatment of HIV infection has made rapid progress in recent years. However, the problem of so-called sleeping HI viruses, which hide in cells and can strike again after stopping the medication, has not been solved so far. However, US researchers now seem to have found a way in animal experiments to attack these inactive HI viruses.

No healing
Targeted therapy can therefore also kill the sleeping viruses in an HIV infection, which escape the previously common drugs. Researchers led by Victor Garcia of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown this in a study of mice with human immune cells. Even if this procedure was not successful, the study shows that the reservoirs of the pathogen can basically be reached, the researchers write in the journal „PLoS pathogens“.

Viruses survive in reservoirs
The antiretroviral therapy (ART) could reduce the number of pathogens in HIV patients below the detection limit. However, inactive viruses can outlast the therapy within cells in so-called reservoirs and multiply again after discontinuation of the drugs. Therefore, scientists are trying to find ways to activate all the pathogens in the body so that drugs can reach and kill them. Garcia researchers used so-called BLT mice whose entire immune system consists of human cells to test it.

Mice infected with HIV
The scientists infected the animals with HIV and treated them with a cocktail of three drugs. Although these struck, the researchers still found infected immune cells in all tissues analyzed, including bone marrow, spleen, liver, lung, and colon. „In humans, the analysis of HIV levels in tissue types is difficult, but the simultaneous examination of a broad tissue spectrum provides important insights into HIV biology“, so first author Paul Denton.

A big step forward
In a second step, the scientists wanted to target the host cells along with the inactive viruses. They used an antibody equipped with a toxin, which reacts to the virus protein Env. HIV-infected cells carry this protein on their surface. The number of infected cells was reduced to one-sixth by treatment with the antibody. While this is still not enough for a cure, the result is a big step forward. „Our work proves that HIV-infected cells can be destroyed anywhere in the body“, so Garcia. „More importantly, the BLT system provides a platform to test virtually any new approach to HIV destruction.“ (Ad)