Researchers from the Pasteur Institute, the CNRS and the Vaccine Research Institute have discovered a new mechanism for the functioning of human body antibodies in people with AIDS.
In some patients infected with the AIDS virus (HIV), so-called “broad spectrum neutralizing” antibodies (bNAbs) are capable of neutralizing the spread of the virus but also of directly recognizing the infected cells and causing their destruction by the cells. Natural Killer (NK), the cells of the immune system responsible for killing abnormal cells from the body.
New HIV elimination strategies
“This work represents an important step in the understanding of the mechanism of action of broad-spectrum neutralizing antibodies. It defines the parameters controlling the capacities of these antibodies to recruit immune cells and supports the idea that they could reduce the reservoir in patients infected with HIV “, explains Olivier Schwartz from the Virus and Immunity Unit of the Institut Pasteur / CNRS.
This finding is important because it may help define new HIV elimination strategies.
To date, only antiretrovirals help fight the disease. But the virus is never completely eliminated and even after many years of therapy, the “viral reservoir” can wake up if the patient stops treatment.
An estimated 1.2 million people died of AIDS last year and nearly 35 million are now infected with the virus, placing AIDS among the world’s deadliest infectious diseases.
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