There’s bad news for HIV patients. Researchers have revealed that although current therapies such as current antiretroviral therapy (ART) can successfully block the HIV virus from replicating further, the pathogen can lie dormant in the brain.
“Discontinuation of treatment can reignite the progression of infection to AIDS,” as per a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigations.
As a part of its life cycle, the human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) inserts a copy of its DNA into human immune cells. Some of these newly-infected immune cells can then transition into a dormant, latent state for a long period of time, which is referred to as HIV latency.
Although current therapies, such as current antiretroviral therapy (ART), can successfully block the virus from replicating further, they cannot eradicate latent HIV. If treatment is ever discontinued, the virus can rebound from latency and lead to AIDS.
Scientists have been searching for where exactly these latent cells are hiding in the body.
The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigations, confirms that microglial cells, which are specialised immune cells with a decade-long lifespan in the brain, can serve as a stable viral reservoir for latent HIV.
“We now know that microglial cells serve as a persistent brain reservoir,” said first author Yuyang Tang, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and member of the University of North Carolina HIV Cure Center.
“This had been suspected in the past, but proof in humans was lacking. Our method for isolating viable brain cells provides a new framework for future studies on reservoirs of the central nervous system and, ultimately, efforts towards eradicating HIV,” Tang added.
Now that the researchers know that latent HIV can take refuge in microglial cells in the brain, they are now considering plans to target this type of reservoir.