Stop HIV from destroying the immune system. New ways to remove cholesterol

An international research team said recently that they have found a way to prevent HIV from damaging the immune system By removing cholesterol from the outer membrane of HIV, they can effectively prevent the virus from damaging the human immune system The research results published in the latest issue of blood are of great significance for the development of AIDS vaccine AIDS is caused by HIV infection Usually, when a person is infected with a certain virus or bacteria, his immune system will naturally defend However, some researchers believe that HIV can make the first defense line of human defense function - nonspecific immune response excessive, thus weakening the next defense line of the immune system - specific immune response, and then the whole immune mechanism of human body will be destroyed According to a paper published in the Journal of blood by scientists from Britain, the United States, Italy and other countries, if cholesterol in the outer membrane of the virus is removed, AIDS virus will be prevented from triggering non-specific immune response, so that HIV can not damage the immune system When the researchers removed the cholesterol, they found that it prevented HIV from triggering a nonspecific immune response, and led to a more specific response mediated by immune cells called T cells This result supports the hypothesis that HIV can weaken the defense ability of the immune system by over stimulating the nonspecific immune response Dr Adriano boerso of Imperial College of technology, one of the authors of the paper, pointed out that HIV destroys the immune system by stimulating excessive immune response, which may be one of the reasons why it is so difficult to develop HIV vaccine Most vaccines recognize invaders mainly through non-specific reactions, but if the virus initiates other mechanisms and weakens the non-specific reactions, the vaccine will be difficult to work In general, immunocytoplasmic dendritic cells (pDCs) can recognize HIV quickly and produce signal molecules interferon to react These signals activate a variety of physiological processes, which are beneficial at first, but damage the immune system for a long time The researchers found that if the cholesterol in the HIV envelope was removed, HIV could no longer activate pDCs, so that T cells would be more effective against the virus Researchers used different concentrations of β - cyclodextrin to remove cholesterol and produce HIV with holes in its outer membrane The perforated virus is not infectious and cannot stimulate pDCs, but it can still be recognized by T cells "It's like the army has lost its weapons, but there are still flags, and other teams can identify and attack them." Said boasso His team is currently working on the possibility of using the inactive virus to develop an HIV vaccine (Science Daily)