New research from Los Alamos and partners shows important insights into HIV treatment. Increasing clinical understanding of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is key to treating patients and with powering community transmission.
Immunodeficiency occurs during the course of the disease in HIV-infected patients and this leads to specific clinical pictures that need to be recognized to ensure the correct treatment is administered.
From the clinical perspective, establishing an early diagnosis is essential. This has implications for the course of the disease, as well as HIV transmission to people who are seronegative.
The vulnerability of certain populations within a given society is a key point and this vulnerability is enhanced by limited by access to HIV testing and counselling. This is particularly noticeable among populations at high risk of HIV infection who reside in more deprived communities.
To assist with such work, scientists report a two-phase decline seen in HIV treatments. This reflects the fact that the HIV virus infected two distinct cell populations that produced HIV. In particular, understanding the cell dynamics should help virologists to develop new ways to reduce the infected cell number with the ultimate goal of curing HIV infection.
A new mathematical model reveals that when treating HIV with antiretroviral medication the decline in infected cells produces a pattern that is uneven. Close examination finds that there are two distinct cell groups and this analysis provides useful information for subsequent treatment regimes.
One group of cells was found to produce the majority of the virus, but lived only a day or so after the start of treatment. The second cell population, which released virus at a slower rate, was found to live a matter of weeks while producing virus.
The second cell population appears to have a half-life of about 19 months. This insight could provide important information for physicians seeking to determine the length of time of treatment.
The importance is in that treatments stopped too soon result in a resumption of infection, a pattern detectable within weeks.
The new research appears in the journal PNAS, titled “Complex decay dynamics of HIV virions, intact and defective proviruses, and 2LTR circles following initiation of antiretroviral therapy.”
