HIV Plays Hide-And-Seek In Bone Marrow
Scientists have discovered that the AIDS virus can avoid treatment by infecting bone marrow, becoming dormant, and later converting into blood cells.
Researchers at the University of Michigan, led by Dr. Kathleen Collins, discovered a cluster of dormant HIV virus cells within bone marrow, where they can avoid drugs and then re-emerge and cause renewed infection at a later date.
The discovery helps explain why those infected with AIDS need to maintain therapy for life, lest the disease return if and when treatment is ceased, Collins recently told Ashley Hall of The World Today. "There was good reason to believe that this was due to the virus being able to hide out in so-called reservoirs in a very stable form and it is sitting there poised to reactivate so that when drugs are stopped and the virus can spread again, the virus can rebound."
"What we found that there was evidence that HIV in fact, does infect the bone marrow progenitor cells or parent cells that are the source of all of the different blood lineages in the body and moreover that HIV can take on a latent form and so we were able to detect the presence of virus ending cells even after patients had been on therapy for years… Initially we were very surprised. Certainly it wasn’t well understood that HIV had the capacity to affect these cells."
While this could be a landmark discovery that eventually helps lead to the elimination of the virus in an individual, Collins and other experts emphasize that there is still much work to be done. Researchers must still try to find a way to target the dormant cells, and there may yet be other obstacles to overcome with the treatment of the disease.
However, Collins is optimistic about what the future holds in the fight against AIDS, especially in poorer countries where individuals struggle to afford medication. As she told The Times of India, "If you shorten the therapy even to two years, that would dramatically change things."
According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an estimated 33 million people globally have been infected with HIV/AIDS. HIV causes AIDS by attacking and destroying T-cells, a type of white blood cell that helps fight off infections and keeps individuals from becoming susceptible to serious illness and disease.
—
On the Net: