Post-treatment control of HIV appears rare, biomarkers may help predict viral rebound
Only four individuals out of nearly 5000 people receiving care at US military health facilities were found to exhibit immune
Reservoir, remission, rebound
Where and when can HIV be found in a person living with HIV?
The HIV reservoir is the pool of virus remaining in the body of a person living with HIV who is on treatment. Treatment is very good at dealing with virus in the blood, and with successful treatment, blood virus will become undetectable. Anti-HIV drugs are not able to get into all parts of the body, however, and often reservoirs of virus remain despite treatment. The HIV reservoir is mainly made up of non-active immune cells such as resting CD4+ T cells which can be found in places such as lymph nodes, spleen, and the lining of the gut.
Currently it is impossible to definitively prove that HIV has been completely eliminated from all parts of the body. The term “remission” is borrowed from the cancer field, and is defined as the absence of disease (viral replication) for an extended period off therapy.
HIV rebound refers to the re-emergence of virus after a period when it was not detectable in the blood. To measure the success of some HIV cure interventions, individuals may be required to stop their treatment, the time it takes for the virus to re-emerge to detectable levels in the blood is referred to as “time to rebound”.
Fat tissue may be another part of HIV reservoir
In addition to possibly being a component of the HIV reservoir, fat tissue may also be a source of harmful
Division or multiplication: exploring the maintenance of the HIV reservoir
The remarkable stability of the reservoir of latent HIV in a patient on effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) is measured in
Cell-to-cell transmission of HIV-1 is required to trigger pyroptotic death of lymphoid-tissue-derived CD4 T cells
Highlights The mode of HIV-1 spread determines the outcome form of cell death Cell-to-cell spread is required to deplete non-permissive
Have we been looking for HIV in all the wrong places?
Have researchers and doctors been looking for HIV in all the wrong places? That’s what the scientists involved in the
Teenager ‘in remission’ from HIV despite stopping drugs
An 18-year-old French woman is in remission from HIV – despite not having taken any drugs against the virus for
HIV reservoirs as obstacles and opportunities for an HIV cure
Abstract The persistence of HIV reservoirs remains a formidable obstacle to achieving sustained virologic remission in HIV-infected individuals after antiretroviral
The cure: are we any closer?
These days, most PLHIV are able to achieve an undetectable viral load within three months of starting treatment and to sustain that level indefinitely.
Remission rather than cure
While the discovery of a cure for HIV seems some way off, International AIDS Society President Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (who discovered the