AIDS virus finds haven inside bone marrow cells
March 8, 2010
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON–The virus that causes AIDS can hide in bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness, according to new research that could point the way to better treatments for the disease.
Finding that hideout is a first step but years of research lie ahead.
Dr. Kathleen Collins of the University of Michigan, and her colleagues report in this week's edition of the journal Nature Medicine that the HIV virus can infect long-lived bone marrow cells that eventually convert into blood cells.
Though dormant in bone marrow cells, when those progenitor cells develop into blood cells, it can be reactivated and cause renewed infection, she said, letting HIV kill the new blood cells then move on to infect other cells.
"If we're ever going to be able to find a way to get rid of the cells, the first step is to understand" where a latent infection can continue, Collins said.
In recent years, drugs have reduced AIDS deaths sharply but patients need to keep taking medicines for life or infection returns. That's a sign, as drugs battle the active virus, that some of the disease remains hidden away to flare up once therapy is stopped, Collins said.
One hideout was found earlier in blood cells called macrophages. Another pool was discovered in memory T-cells, so research began on attacking those. But those locations could not account for all the HIV virus still circulating, Collins said, which led her to study blood cell progenitors.
Finding these sources of infection is important because eliminating them would allow AIDS patients to stop taking drugs after infection was over. That's critical in countries where treatment is hard to afford and deliver.
"I don't know how many people realize that, although the drugs have reduced mortality we still have a long way to go," Collins said in a telephone interview. "That is mainly because we can't stop the drugs" people have to take for a lifetime.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, Burroughs Wellcome Foundation, University of Michigan, Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, National Science Foundation and a Bernard Maas Fellowship.
Toronto Star
Featured Sponsored Listings