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New Way to Strengthen HIV Patient Immunity... implications for XMRV?

parvofighter

Senior Member
Messages
440
Location
Canada
Cool Canada/US research from a team looking @ retroviral reservoirs, and now... at novel ways to boost retroviral patients' immunity.
This study on strengthening the immunity of HIV patients comes from the same Canadian team that is working on how to eliminate HIV viral reservoirs - something Dr Mikovits has been speaking of lately.

This forum and the net in general has several accounts of patients whose ME/CFS has improved significantly after chemo. In last year's work, Skaly et al proposed first using Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) for AIDS, and then using targeted chemotherapy to actually kill the remaining cells harboring the retrovirus. An interesting proposition. (You can read more on that earlier work on the thread at the end of Post #1, Thread: "How to Antiretroviral Drugs Work?", at http://www.forums.aboutmecfs.org/sh...o-ANTI-RETROVIRAL-Drugs-Work&highlight=sekaly

Now this same team's latest study looks at strengthening the immunity of HIV patients. Not sure how closely this might affect possible XMRV patients, but it's quite intriguing.
From: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/181637.php

Fortifying The Immunity Of HIV Patients

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 09 Mar 2010 - 3:00 PST
New findings from a Universite de Montreal and the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida (VGTI) study, in collaboration with scientists from the NIH and the McGill University Health Center, may soon lead to an expansion of the drug arsenal used to fight HIV. (My note: Might this have relevance for XMRV?) The Canada-U.S. study published in the journal Nature Medicine characterizes the pivotal role of two molecules, PD-1 and IL-10, in influencing the function of CD4/T-helper cells and altering their ability to fight HIV.

"Our findings show that the membrane protein PD-1 is up-regulated during HIV infection by the release of bacterial products from the gut (sound familiar?) and this subsequently increases the production of a cell derived factor, IL-10 that paralyses the immune system (sound familiar again?) ," says senior author Dr. Rafick-Pierre Skaly, a professor at the Universit de Montral, researcher at the Centre de Recherche du CHUM and scientific director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida. "We are the first to show that these two molecules work together to shut down the function of CD4 T-cells in HIV patients. This in turn, may lead to paralysis of the immune system and an accelerated disease progression ."

"Our results suggest that it is important to block both IL-10 and PD-1 interactions to restore the immune response during HIV infection," says Dr. Skaly.

"We believe that immunotherapies that target PD-1 and IL-10 should be part of the arsenal used to restore immune function in HIV-infected subjects."

About HIV treatment:
During the last 20 years, treatment of HIV/AIDS has evolved and now uses highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) that involves at least three active anti-retroviral medications. The HAART "cocktail" is a potent suppressor of viral replication in the blood. Although, HAART has been shown to delay the progression of AIDS and prolong life, it is not curative. The quest for improved treatments continues.

Partners in research:
This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the Fonds de la recherche en sant du Qubec, the National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research and the Canadian Network for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics.

About the study:
The article "PD-1 Induced IL-10 Production by Monocytes Impairs CD4 T-Cell Activation during HIV Infection," published in Nature, was authored by Elias A. Said, Franck P. Dupuy, Lydie Trautmann, Yuwei Zhang, Yu Shi, Mohamed El-Far, Brenna J. Hill, Alessandra Noto, Petronela Ancuta, Yoav Peretz, Simone G. Fonseca, Julien Van Grevenynghe, Mohamed R. Boulassel, Julie Bruneau, Naglaa H. Shoukry, Jean-Pierre Routy, Daniel C. Douek, Elias K. Haddad, Rafick P. Sekaly.

Source:
Sophie Langlois
University of Montreal

OK, Rich, Gerwyn, George, Natasa, Kurt, others. Your thoughts?!.....:Retro smile:
 

redo

Senior Member
Messages
874
Great find parvofighter! Yes, I think this is highly relevant.

The Canada-U.S. study published in the journal Nature Medicine characterizes the pivotal role of two molecules, PD-1 and IL-10, in influencing the function of CD4/T-helper cells and altering their ability to fight HIV.

"Our findings show that the membrane protein PD-1 is up-regulated during HIV infection by the release of bacterial products from the gut (sound familiar?) and this subsequently increases the production of a cell derived factor, IL-10 that paralyses the immune system (sound familiar again?) ,"

I have really elevated IL-10 levels, and other interleukins as well. It seems they are doing somewhat similar with IL-7 and HIV, only that IL-7 are then meant to activate the reservoirs http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102271385.html
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Hi Parvofighter, there is a lot of interest in these kinds of combination approaches in ME. Over time the options available will increase, and they need to be tested. The hard part is convincing funding agencies to fund such research. Bye, Alex