Immune activation and inflammation persist in the majority of treated HIV-infected individuals and is associated with excess risk of mortality and morbidity. A new study by BUSM researchers suggests that use of HIV RNA expression inhibitors as adjunct therapy might diminish atypical inflammation and restore immune function in HIV-infected individuals on combination antiretroviral therapy (cART).<\/p>\n
HIV-1-infected individuals have\u00a0an excess\u00a0risk of developing non-AIDS complications such as\u00a0cardiovascular atherosclerosis, neurocognitive dysfunctions, non-AIDS cancers, osteoporosis, and renal disorders. Systemic chronic immune activation has been postulated to lead to these non-AIDS complications.<\/p>\n
Despite long-term viral suppression by\u00a0cART,\u00a0it has remained unclear how chronic inflammation is induced in HIV-infected individuals. In this study, BUSM researchers identified a mechanism of HIV-1-induced chronic immune activation and T cell dysfunction. In studies performed with primary human macrophages and T cells, they found that persistent infection of macrophages with HIV-1 and expression of\u00a0intron-containing HIV-1 RNA alone even in the absence of infectious virus production lead to\u00a0induction of type I interferon (IFN-I)-dependent pro-inflammatory responses and immune exhaustion of co-cultured T cells. They believe that these findings might provide an explanation for the observed chronic inflammation-associated morbidities in HIV-infected individuals who are on cART.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope our study will broaden knowledge of host-HIV interactions and might help to reduce inflammation-associated disorders caused by chronic viral infections,\u201d said Rahm Gummuluru, PhD, corresponding author and associate professor of microbiology.<\/p>\n
These findings appear online in the journal Nature Communications<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Researchers believe findings might provide an explanation for the observed chronic inflammation-associated morbidities in HIV-infected individuals who are on cART.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12772,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[91,90],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12772"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61274,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61273\/revisions\/61274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}