Elite controllers are those who have immune systems that can suppress HIV without the use of medicine. Even though individuals still retain viral reservoirs that can manufacture new HIV a type of immune cell known as a killer T cell. It keeps the virus under control without the need for medication.
During an infection, HIV inserts copies of its genome into the DNA of cells forming a viral reservoir. The virus is well hidden from anti-HIV medications and the body’s immunological response in this form.
Scientists Find Second HIV Patient Whose Body Looks To Be Virus-Free
This reservoir produces new virus particles in most people regularly. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) can stop new viruses from being created but it can’t destroy the reservoir necessitating daily treatment to keep the virus under control.
Xu Yu MD of the Ragon Institute at MGH MIT and Harvard has been researching elite controllers’ HIV reservoirs. Her team discovered one patient with no complete HIV sequence in her DNA indicating that her immune system may have destroyed the HIV reservoir, a sterilizing cure as scientists call it.
Yu’s team sequenced billions of cells from this patient dubbed the San Francisco Patient in search of an HIV genome that could be utilized to produce a new virus but came up empty-handed. This remarkable discovery the first known instance of a sterilizing therapy without the use of stem cells was published in Nature in 2020.
“These findings especially with the identification of a second case indicate there may be an actionable path to a sterilizing cure for people who are not able to do this on their own” adds Yu who is also a medical investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Yu’s team has recently discovered a second untreated HIV-infected patient the Esperanza Patient who likes the San Francisco Patient has no complete HIV genomes in 1.19 billion blood cells and 500 million tissue cells sequenced. This study which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine could be the second time a sterilizing cure has been discovered.
Further research is underway and the next few years are crucial for the research according to experts. If the scientists are able to find a way to manage the situation, it can become a huge ray of hope for millions of people suffering from the disease.
She goes on to say that these data could point to a shared killer T cell response that is driving this reaction in both patients with the possibility that other HIV patients have also obtained a sterilizing cure. Researchers may be able to develop treatments that train other people’s immune systems to mimic these responses in cases of HIV infection if the immunological processes underlying this response can be identified.
Experts are of the opinion that such things may be easily possible in the future and this has surprised many people in the medical field. Further research on such patients can lead to new discoveries which will revolutionize the treatment of such diseases.
Yu adds: “We are now looking toward the possibility of inducing this kind of immunity in persons on ART through vaccination to educate their immune systems to be able to control the virus without ART.”
For the successful protection of the host against harmful germs, the adaptive immune response is essential. Because encounters with pathogens result in the synthesis of cytokines and the stimulation of dendritic cells to active antigen-presenting cell status the innate immune system aids in the initiation of the adaptive immune response. These migratory antigen-presenting cells convey pathogen antigens to local lymphoid organs where they are given to antigen-specific naive T lymphocytes that recirculate through the lymphoid organs.
