In Vivo Suppression of HIV by Antigen Specific T Cells Derived from Engineered Hematopoietic Stem Cells
HIV actively subverts the potent natural immune responses against it, particularly cellular cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses.
HIV actively subverts the potent natural immune responses against it, particularly cellular cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses. The development of a therapy that allows long-lived immune self-containment of HIV and restoration of these CTL responses by the host would therefore be an ideal solution. Through genetic manipulation of human blood-forming stem cells, this study from UCLA introduced an HIV-targeting T cell receptor (TCR) that allowed the generation of functional HIV-specific CTLs following differentiation within human tissues in a humanized mouse model. To assess if these newly developed, HIV-specific CTLs would then allow active suppression of HIV replication, the researchers infected the mice with HIV. Their study found that the mice developed HIV-specific CTLs which were show to have a functional antiviral CTL response in vivo that significantly lowered viral replication following HIV infection. Thus these results strongly suggest that stem cell based gene therapy may be a feasible approach in the treatment of chronic viral infections and provide a foundation towards the development of this type of strategy.
