The second HIV "self-healing" person in the world may appear!

In 2013, a 23-year-old woman from Esperanza, Argentina was diagnosed with HIV infection
.

In the eight years since then, she has hardly received drug treatment, but not only has she never experienced related symptoms, but the virus may have been miraculously eliminated by the autoimmune system.

On November 16, a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine stated that this "Esperanza patient" may be the second HIV-infected person in the world to achieve "self-healing"
.

This rare case of retreat from HIV infection may lead us to find the right direction to cure AIDS

When HIV invades the human body, these cunning RNA viruses will reverse transcribe their genome into DNA, and then insert it into the DNA of human cells to form a "provirus
.

" At this time, the host cell becomes a virus reservoir, and the provirus hidden in the cell can not only easily evade the search and attack of the immune system, but can also use the host cell to produce new virus particles at any time

In the battle against HIV, these virus reservoirs have become a blind spot for scientists to overcome
.

Fortunately, although the provirus in the cells cannot be eradicated, humans have found a way to prevent the mass production of new viruses.

Among the many HIV-infected people, there are rare lucky ones
.

They only account for less than 1% of all HIV-infected people.

From these special groups of people called "elite controllers", Professor Xu Yu from the Lagan Institute in the United States and Dr.
Natalia Laufer from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina led a joint research team and found a special case.
, Which is the Esperanza patient at the beginning of the article
.

After HIV infection was detected in 2013, Esperanza patients hardly received ART treatment-the only use was during pregnancy in 2019-2020, and they received 6 months of treatment for a short period of time
.

After delivering a healthy baby, she continued to stop ART

Since 2013, she has undergone a total of 10 viral load tests, and has not found any signs of viral infection, nor has she exhibited relevant symptoms
.

Is this infected person, like other elite controllers, inhibiting virus replication; or is it able to completely clear the virus repository? The only way to distinguish this is to sequence as many cells as possible to check if she still has a complete proviral sequence in her body

In further testing, the research team collected nearly 1.
2 billion blood cells and 500 million tissue cells in her body for sequencing between 2017 and 2020
.

From the sequencing results, the research team found a defective original virus-this result once again shows that the Esperanza patient had indeed been infected by HIV before

▲The picture reflects the mutation of the HIV genetic sequence of the infected person (picture source: reference [1])

Paper pointed out that the patient seems Esperanza "In the natural course of infection, complete removal of the replication-competent HIV provirus"
.
This condition is also called "eliminative cure"
.

In fact, this is the second time scientists have found potential AIDS "self-healing" persons
.
In August last year, Professor Xu Yu led the team and published a blockbuster study in the journal Nature
.
In addition to revealing the key factor that distinguishes elite controllers: the location where the provirus inserts into the cell's DNA, this study also reports the first potential "self-healing" person
.
This woman from California, USA, like the Esperanza patient, did not have any complete proviral sequence in 1.
5 billion cells
.

In the latest research, the recurrence of similar cases tells us that the "self-healing" of AIDS is not an isolated case
.
Behind these cases, there may be a universal strategy for curing AIDS
.
Before these two infected people, the only person who could achieve a definitive cure was the "Berlin patient"-the world's first AIDS cured person who carried a key mutation and received a stem cell transplant
.

Of course, as with last year's findings, the researchers still showed sufficient caution in their conclusions
.
The reason is not difficult to understand: because the provirus may hide in almost any part of the body, theoretically, only by testing all the cells of the human body can it be concluded that the virus reservoir has been cleared-but this is obviously impractical
.
But at least it is certain that in more than 1 billion cells, no trace of intact provirus has been found
.

Professor Xu Yu further pointed out that there is a specific killer T cell response mechanism in the two infected individuals who may "self-heal"
.
This shows that there may be more HIV carriers who have also achieved clearance cures
.

Note: The original text has been deleted

Reference materials:

Reference materials:

[1] Gabriela Turk et al, A Possible Sterilizing Cure of HIV-1 Infection Without Stem Cell Transplantation.
Annals of Internal Medicine (2021).
https://doi.
org/10.
7326/L21-0297

[1] Gabriela Turk et al, A Possible Sterilizing Cure of HIV-1 Infection Without Stem Cell Transplantation.
Annals of Internal Medicine (2021).
https://doi.
org/10.
7326/L21-0297

[2] Chenyang Jiang et al, Distinct viral reservoirs in individuals with spontaneous control of HIV-1.
Nature (2020).
https://doi.
org/10.
1038/s41586-020-2651-8

[2] Chenyang Jiang et al, Distinct viral reservoirs in individuals with spontaneous control of HIV-1.
Nature (2020).
https://doi.
org/10.
1038/s41586-020-2651-8

[3] Scientists identify second HIV patient whose body appears to have rid itself of the virus.
Retrieved Nov 15th, 2021 from https:// Scientists identify second HIV patient whose body appears to have rid itself of the virus.
Retrieved Nov 15th, 2021 from https:// [4] In Extremely Rare Case, a Woman With HIV Has'Cleared' The Virus Without Treatment.
Retrieved Nov 15th, 2021 from https:// -cured-of-the-hiv-virus

[4] In Extremely Rare Case, a Woman With HIV Has'Cleared' The Virus Without Treatment.
Retrieved Nov 15th, 2021 from https:// -cured-of-the-hiv-virus