The researchers at the Italian Institute of Health have claimed that they have developed a new shock and kill technique to eradicate the HIV-infected cells from the body. The research team led by Dr Enrico Garaci and Dr. Andrea Savarino studied the barrier of latency that has been the main obstacle to HIV eradication from the body.

 

The researchers revealed that cells harbouring a quiescent HIV genome are responsible for HIV persistence during therapy. The scientists tried to devise a way to eradicate the virus so as to render the latently infected cells targetable by the immune system or artificial means. They said that HIV virus can be smoked out by using inhibitors of histone deacetylases (HDACs). However, they are effective on HIV only when used in toxic quantities, stated the scientists.

 

The researchers found that at non-toxic quantities class I HDAC inhibitors were able to induce the awakening of a portion of cells within a latently infected cell population. After that the scientists repeated the experiment adding a drug inducing oxidative stress, buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) and discovered that it recruited cells non-responsive to the HDAC inhibitors into the responding cell population. According to Savarino, the study will help to develop new means of eliminating HIV-infected cells from the body.