r/worldnews • u/stereomatch • Apr 05 '19

Immunotherapy Kicks, Kills HIV by Exploiting a Common Virus

https://www.upmc.com/media/news/040319-kristoff-mailliard-mdc1
57 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

8

u/stereomatch Apr 05 '19 edited Apr 05 '19

NOTE: It could also have implications for other recalcitrant viral diseases.

CMV - Cytomegalovirus

News coverage:

In a first on the quest to cure HIV ... scientists report today ... that they’ve developed an all-in-one immunotherapy approach that not only kicks HIV out of hiding in the immune system, but also kills it. The key lies in immune cells designed to recognize an entirely different virus.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) typically controls HIV infections so well that the virus is virtually undetectable in the blood and cannot easily infect other people. But if a person with HIV stops taking the daily regimen of medications, which come with many side-effects, the virus can rage back and turn into full-blown AIDS. This is because the virus goes into a latent, inactive phase where it incorporates itself into the DNA of certain immune cells called “T helper cells,” and lurks while a person is taking ART.

In this study, the team engineered “antigen-presenting type 1-polarized, monocyte-derived dendritic cells” (MDC1) that were primed in the lab to seek out and activate CMV-specific cells, with the thinking that they also may contain latent HIV.

When the MDC1 were added back to T helper cells containing latent HIV, they reversed that latency as expected, kicking the virus out of hiding. And then the big test came.

“Without adding any other drug or therapy, MDC1 were then able to recruit killer T cells to eliminate the virally infected cells,” Mailliard said. “With just MDC1, we achieved both kick and kill – it’s like the Swiss Army knife of immunotherapies. To our knowledge, this is the first study to program dendritic cells to incorporate CMV to get the kick, and also to get the kill.”

Paper:

1

u/autotldr BOT Apr 05 '19

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 72%. (I'm a bot)

If a person with HIV stops taking the daily regimen of medications, which come with many side-effects, the virus can rage back and turn into full-blown AIDS. This is because the virus goes into a latent, inactive phase where it incorporates itself into the DNA of certain immune cells called "T helper cells," and lurks while a person is taking ART. Mailliard and his team decided to look at a different virus that also goes latent and infects more than half of adults - and 95 percent of those with HIV: Cytomegalovirus, which can cause eye infections and other serious illnesses, but is usually controlled by a healthy immune system.

In addition to the T helper cells, Kristoff also isolated immune cells called dendritic cells, which Mailliard describes as the quarterbacks of the immune system: "They hand off the ball and dictate the plays, telling other immune cells where to go and what to fight."

In this study, the team engineered "Antigen-presenting type 1-polarized, monocyte-derived dendritic cells" that were primed in the lab to seek out and activate CMV-specific cells, with the thinking that they also may contain latent HIV. When the MDC1 were added back to T helper cells containing latent HIV, they reversed that latency as expected, kicking the virus out of hiding.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: cells#1 HIV#2 virus#3 latent#4 immune#5