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ShareOct. 4, 2009 — The drugs used to treat individuals infected with HIV-1 keep the virus under control and dramatically improve prognosis, but they do not eliminate the virus from the body completely, some remains hidden in immune cells known as resting CD4+ T cells. There are currently no clinically acceptable strategies for eliminating this reservoir of HIV-1.
However, Robert Siliciano and colleagues, at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, have developed an in vitro system that mimics the situation in people and used it to identify a compound that can get at this hidden HIV-1 and eliminate it from the CD4+ T cells. The researchers report their results in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Importantly, this compound does not cause global T cell activation, the side effect that has made other approaches to eliminating the HIV-1 reservoir clinically unacceptable. However, it has other potential toxicity issues that are likely to preclude its use in the clinic.
The authors therefore hope to use their in vitro system to screen more compounds so that a clinically acceptable drug that eliminates HIV-1 can be developed.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Journal of Clinical Investigation, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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Journal Reference:
- Hung-Chih Yang, Sifei Xing, Liang Shan, Karen O%u2019Connell, Jason Dinoso, Anding Shen, Yan Zhou, Cynthia K. Shrum, Yefei Han, Jun O. Liu, Hao Zhang, Joseph B. Margolick, Robert F. Siliciano. Small-molecule screening using a human primary cell model of HIV latency identifies compounds that reverse latency without cellular activation. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2009; DOI: 10.1172/JCI39199
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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