Posted on June 01, 2017
Source: The Hub
"Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have found new evidence that immune cells infected with a latent form of HIV are able to proliferate, replenishing the reservoir of virus that is resistant to antiretroviral drug therapy.
Although HIV can be controlled with therapy in most cases, the proliferation of such reservoir cells pose a persistent barrier to developing a cure for HIV, researchers say.
'We knew before that the reservoir is very long lived,' says Robert Siliciano, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 'But what we didn't know was how the reservoir was maintained. Now it is clear that these cells aren't just sitting there but are dividing and replenishing themselves.'
A report on the new research, published March 24 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, says resting CD4+ T cells not only make up the latent reservoir of HIV in those infected, but also have the potential to reactivate the production of active virus throughout the body."
