A study found a property of a specific kind of immune cell that may explain why some people can keep HIV in check; The insight could be harnessed to eliminate the need for daily antiviral medications.
Researchers led by a team from Mass General Brigham and the Ragon Institute have discovered why some people living with HIV who are given a treatment called broadly neutralizing anti-HIV antibodies (bNAbs) can safely stop taking standard, lifelong HIV medications and maintain control of the virus for years, while others given the same treatment do not achieve this remission. The findings, published in Nature, could potentially be used to design combination therapies that work for more people.
For their study, Collins and colleagues analyzed blood samples from 12 people in four different clinical trials who received bNAbs and then stopped standard antiretroviral therapy. They compared samples from the seven participants who could control HIV after bNAb treatment for up to seven years (that is, keep the virus at very low levels) with samples from five participants who experienced viral rebound. They found that immune cells called CD8+ T cells of “post-intervention controllers” could multiply well and kill HIV cells efficiently. While bNAb treatment boosted these abilities, what mattered most was having these CD8+ T cell features before treatment.
Read the full news story here.
Source : Mass General Brigham
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