New protein can expose HIV "hiding place"

According to the latest results of French researchers published in the journal Nature, they found that the surface of T cells harboring HIV specifically expressed a protein called cd32a, which was not detected in T cells without HIV infection This means that cd32a protein can be used as a biological target to develop new drugs for "invisible" HIV HIV (source: Xinhuanet) because HIV regards some immune, lymphoid and even intestinal cells as "invisible places", the existing drugs and immune system are unable to identify their "identity", leading to the fact that AIDS has not been cured for many years It has been the most desired goal of HIV researchers to identify the infected cells in the deep, but it has achieved little in 20 years This time, French University of Montpellier virologist Joseph bengilana led a team to expose T cells to fluorescent labeled HIV in the laboratory, trying to find the difference in gene expression between T cells infected with HIV and those not infected with HIV As a result, they found that there was a gene switch encoding cd32a protein in infected T cells, but no such gene was detected in uninfected T cells They then used an antibody to bind to the cd32a protein, and successfully extracted the cells expressing the protein from the blood samples of HIV infected people, and confirmed that they were T cells "hiding" HIV and remaining dormant "This is a new breakthrough that has never been possible before," she said Because these latent virus carrying cells cannot be recognized, there is no way to find a way to attack them for many years " Stephen dicker, a virologist at the University of California, is very excited about the new discovery He thinks that cd32a can be used as a new target, or drugs can be found to cure AIDS However, further research needs to be carried out before this: first, to verify whether T cells expressing cd32a protein can be equally screened out in blood samples of patients of different genders, ages and stages of disease; second, to detect whether other HIV susceptible tissues such as intestinal tract and lymph nodes can also express cd32a protein.