Some aggressive infections, such as HIV, cannot be treated antivirally because the virus manages to hide in the immune system.
However, an international team of researchers from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) just discovered that T lymphocytes, a specialized type of white blood cell, managed to find infected cells in the tissues to destroy them.
This discovery, related in a study published on August 3 in the journal Nature Immunology, could provide many answers in the search for a treatment against chronic infections such as the AIDS virus.
Because even if antiretroviral treatment for HIV is very effective, it must be taken for life and does not cure the disease.
According to Dr. Yu, one of the two main authors, this type of killer cell is naturally present in the body during infection, but their number and their killer functions must be boosted to allow them to eliminate the agents of chronic infections. . “We have shown for the first time that there are specialized killer cells capable of migrating into part of the lymphoid tissue to control the infection,” he says.
These killer cells, called cytotoxic follicular T lymphocytes, have the ability to enter hidden areas in lymphoid tissue, where the virus can sometimes “hide” during treatment. This is because HIV, like the Epstein-Barr virus (which causes herpes and mononucleosis, among other things), can “hide” for several years to become active once the immune system is compromised.
The first bases for long-term treatment of HIV
“The potential of this discovery is enormous. It helps us understand effective ways to treat diseases that affect the immune system, such as the AIDS virus or certain types of lymphoma, ”says Dr. Kallies, lead author of this study.
According to Professor Lewin, another researcher behind the discovery, one of the potential applications would be “to inject these super powerful killer cells into the body of patients” or “to treat patients with proteins capable of sending T cells in the right place, directly to the areas where HIV hides during antiviral treatments ”.
Dr Yu hopes that clinical trials for such treatments will start within the next 5 years.
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