Brain HIV-1 latently-infected reservoirs targeted by the suicide gene strategy

Virology Journal

Mehrdad Ravanshad¹  Sepideh Saeb²  Kazem Baesi³  Mahmoud Reza Pourkarim⁴  Christian Schwartz⁵  Olivier Rohr⁵  Clémentine Wallet⁵  Fadoua Daouad⁵ 

[1] Department of Virology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran;Department of Virology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran;University of Strasbourg, Research Unit 7292, DHPI, IUT Louis Pasteur, Schiltigheim, France;Hepatitis and AIDS Department, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran;KU Leuven, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Division of Clinical and Epidemiological Virology, 3000, Leuven, Belgium;University of Strasbourg, Research Unit 7292, DHPI, IUT Louis Pasteur, Schiltigheim, France;

关键词: HIV-1;    Microglial;    Latent reservoirs;    Suicide gene;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12985-021-01584-2

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Reducing the pool of HIV-1 reservoirs in patients is a must to achieve functional cure. The most prominent HIV-1 cell reservoirs are resting CD4 + T cells and brain derived microglial cells. Infected microglial cells are believed to be the source of peripheral tissues reseedings and the emergence of drug resistance. Clearing infected cells from the brain is therefore crucial. However, many characteristics of microglial cells and the central nervous system make extremely difficult their eradication from brain reservoirs. Current methods, such as the “shock and kill”, the “block and lock” and gene editing strategies cannot override these difficulties. Therefore, new strategies have to be designed when considering the elimination of brain reservoirs. We set up an original gene suicide strategy using latently infected microglial cells as model cells. In this paper we provide proof of concept of this strategy.

【 授权许可】

CC BY