A team from the Pasteur Institute has identified a vulnerability in cells called "reservoirs" of the AIDS virus, paving the way for their elimination, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Objective, eliminate infected cells . The current treatments against HIV are to be taken "for life" because the antiretrovirals do not manage to eliminate the reservoirs of the virus lodged in the immune cells. "The antiretrovirals will block the virus, they will act against the virus and its multiplication but they can not eliminate the infected cells There, with our work, it is to characterize the infected cells to be able to target the cells and eliminate them of the HIV-infected organism, "says lead researcher Asier Saez-Cirion.
A method already used in oncology. Pasteur's team has succeeded in identifying the characteristics of CD4 T cells, immune cells that are the main targets of HIV. Their study shows that the virus will primarily infect cells with high metabolic activity. It is this activity, and in particular the glucose consumption of the cell, which plays a key role in the infection: the virus diverts the energy and products provided by the cell to multiply.
This need for the virus is a weakness that could be exploited to attack the "reservoir" cells. Pasteur researchers have succeeded "ex vivo" (on cell cultures) in blocking infection thanks to molecules that inhibit the metabolic activity already used in oncology. "We have seen in our work that cells that become infected with HIV have energetic characteristics that resemble tumor cells, so we can use the same types of tools," says researcher Asier Saez -Cirion.
Towards a remission of patients? The next step for the Pasteur team will be to "identify the molecules that give us an optimal effect, after we have to move to pre-clinical trials in models and using the current clinical trial experience in the treatment of certain cancers to choose molecules that are tolerable by the patient and effective ", according to the researcher. This work is a step towards a possible remission for the patients (one no longer detects infected cell) thanks to the elimination of the reservoirs cells. But "it will probably take a few years before we can really start testing these approaches in a real phase 3 clinical trial that could give us a result on efficacy," said Asier Saez-Cirion.