December 21, 2018.
This is a new hope for AIDS patients: a team of researchers has discovered a new avenue for destroying cells infected with HIV.
Researchers identify the vulnerability of AIDS “reservoir” cells
According to a study published Thursday, December 20, 2018 in the journal Cell Metabolism, a team of researchers from the Institut Pasteur has succeeded in identifying a vulnerability in cells known as “reservoirs” of the AIDS virus. Scientists have indeed ” successfully identified the characteristics of CD4 T lymphocytes, immune cells that are the primary targets of HIV », Can we read in the columns of the Figaro.
The HIV virus would primarily infect cells “with high metabolic activity”, that is to say those which consume the most glucose ” which plays a key role in infection: the virus diverts energy and products supplied by the cell to multiply “. This discovery thus opens the way to the elimination of infected cells.
A first step towards a possible remission of AIDS patients
This is a huge step forward in the fight against AIDS, which affected 36.9 million people worldwide in 2017, according to figures from the site AIDS-info-service, since so far, HIV treatments have to be taken for life, as antiretrovirals cannot eliminate the reservoirs of the virus located in immune cells. ” There, with our work, it is a question of characterizing the infected cells in order to be able to target the cells and eliminate them from the organism infected with HIV. », Explains Asier Saez-Cirion, the leader of the study.
This is a key first step towards a possible remission of AIDS patients, but ” it will probably take a few years before we can start to really test these approaches. in a real phase 3 clinical trial which could give us a result on the efficacy », Specifies Asier Saez-Cirion.
Aurélie Giraud
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