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Scientists have discovered a method to disarm HIV

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Scientists have discovered a method of "disarmament" HIV affects the immune system and believes that their discovery opens the way to obtaining an effective vaccine against AIDS.

American and European researchers conducting laboratory tests on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) found that the virus loses its ability to affect the immune system that experts fail to remove cholesterol from the virus membrane.

"It's like an army that has lost weapons but still flags. Another army can recognize it and to attack," said Adriano Boasso of Imperial College London, who led the study.

Scientists already analyzed some possibilities to use this inactivation of HIV to develop an effective vaccine against AIDS.

Usually when a person is infected with HIV, the immune system of the body it immediately triggers a defensive reaction. Some researchers believe that HIV is the innate immune system has an exaggerated reaction. This next line of defense weakens the immune system, known as "adaptive immune response."

For the study, being published Monday in the medical journal Blood, British scientists removed cholesterol from the membrane surrounding the virus and found that this prevents the HIV virus to trigger innate immune response. In contrast, adaptive immune response to achieve a stronger, orchestrated by a certain type of immune cells - lymphocytes T.

HIV can spread through sexual contact, through those syringes shared by drug users, through breast milk and blood. However, HIV is able to mutate rapidly and can hide from the immune system attacking the body then the cells sent to destroy.

HIV is taking its form a membrane of the cells they infect. This membrane contains cholesterol, which helps the membrane to stay fluid and able to interact with certain types of cells.

Normally, certain immune cells - dendritic cells plasmacitoide (pDCs) - quickly recognize and react by producing HIV molecular signals called interferons. These signals activate various processes that are useful at first, but eventually destroying the immune system if it remains activated for too long.

If it succeeds in removing cholesterol from the membrane of HIV, it can not activate the cells pDCc. Therefore, T lymphocytes, which orchestrate adaptive immune response can more effectively fight the virus.

AIDS kills about 1.8 million people worldwide each year. Approximately 2.6 million people were infected with HIV in 2009 and 33.3 million people living with the virus in the body.

Among the largest producers of drugs against HIV include prestigious companies such as Bristol Myers Squibb Gilead, Merck, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.

Article writed on 23 september 2011

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