A group of Canadian and U.S. researchers believe that chemotherapy could one day be used to treat the HIV-AIDS virus, by targeting cells that cannot be attacked with existing drugs.
A pair of Canadian scientists, Rafick-Pierre Sekaly and Jean-Pierre Routy, were among the researchers who collaborated on a new study that looked at the ways the HIV virus hides within the body. U.S. scientists from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Minnesota also worked on the study.
The results of their research will be published in Nature Medicine.
Current anti-AIDS treatments have been limited by their inability to target so-called HIV reservoirs, specific types of immune system cells that the HIV virus can hide in and where existing drug treatments cannot reach.
But in the study, the researchers were able to identify HIV reservoir cells and the stealthy mechanisms that protect them.
"For the first time, this study proves that the HIV reservoirs are not due to a lack of potency of the antiretroviral drugs, but to the virus hiding inside two different types of long-life CD4 memory immune cells," Routy, a McGill University scientist, said in a recent statement. "There are several types of HIV reservoirs, each necessitating a different treatment to eliminate them."
In general, the researchers learned that when the HIV virus hides within reservoir cells, it can no longer survive without the cell. As a result, if the problematic cell dies, so does the virus resident within it.
The scientists believe that using both antiretroviral drugs and targeted chemotherapy could thus provide a more effective method of treatment for HIV-afflicted patients.
"This would make it possible to destroy the cells containing a virus, while giving the immune system time to regenerate with healthy cells," said Sekaly, when explaining the research in a recent statement.
But the scientists caution that such a treatment is still many years away from use, and would require much more research to validate.
Still, those who worked on the study, like University of Montreal postdoctoral intern Nicholas Chomont, believe they have taken another step towards understanding the deadly virus.
"We now have brand new options to fight HIV," Chomont, a study co-author, said in a statement. "The combination of fundamental and clinical approaches led to amazing results that allow us to elucidate another mystery of this virus of a thousand faces."
