Cellular proliferation keeps the HIV-infected cells alive, finds study

The scientists found out that reducing cellular proliferation could help deplete the number of infected cells and potentially lead to a functional cure for HIV.

Editorial Team | Published: November 19, 2018 1:22 pm

A process which results in an increase in the number of cells known as cell proliferation. © Shutterstock

A new study has found that even after undergoing suppressive antiretroviral therapy (ART), cellular proliferation keeps the HIV-infected cells alive in infected individuals. According to the Deccan Chronicle report, a process which results in an increase in the number of cells known as cell proliferation, wherein the balance between cell divisions and cell loss occurs through cell death or differentiation. The study has been published in Nature Communications journal.

The scientists found out that reducing cellular proliferation could help deplete the number of infected cells and potentially lead to a functional cure for HIV.

The research team in the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, combined mathematical models and immunological insight to understand the genetic signature of HIV-infected cells.

A lead researcher Dan Reeves reportedly said that their approach was inspired by ecology. They adapted tools to characterize the reservoir of HIV-infected cells more realistically, inferring the mechanism of generation from the proportions of unique and identical genetic signatures.

When HIV infects a healthy cell, it inserts its own DNA into the human chromosome, leaving behind a unique genetic signature. If the virus replicating was the cause of latent HIV reservoirs, researchers suggested that this genetic signature would contain unique integration sites and different mutations in the DNA of infected cells.
Since the late 1990s, ART has been effective in helping HIV-positive individuals live healthy lives. To understand why reservoirs of HIV-infected immune cells remain at low levels during ART treatment the researchers are working since then, and how to identify and purge infected cells.

Another researcher, Josh Schiffer reportedly said that they see parallels in achieving functional cures in both HIV and cancer; for example, the difficulties of remission and relapse, and how combination therapies could be successful in bringing either disease to undetectable levels in the body.

To test whether the lymphocyte anti-proliferative drug mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) could be effective at stopping the proliferation of HIV-infected immune cells in people undergoing ART, Schiffer and colleagues are conducting a clinical trial. This could significantly cure HIV.

Published: November 19, 2018 1:22 pm

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