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Poor immune response to the HIV virus

AIDS: The explanation for poor immune response to the HIV virus. Scientists have identified a cellular factor that could explain why dendritic cells, true "sentinel" of the immune system, sometimes have a poor response to the HIV virus, this discovery opened the way for the development of new vaccines.

These results, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, were obtained by teams of researchers from the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Pasteur Institute and the Cochin Institute, says a press release issued by CNRS and the Agence Nationale de Recherches sur to AIDS (ANRS), told AFP.

Dendritic cells present in the skin, mucous membranes and lymphoid system, detects the presence of microbes and trigger an immune response - on the one hand, emit signals that allow triggering a natural reaction to reject, on the other hand, changing the structure of the "intruder", for it "contains fragments (antigens) of cells involved in specific immune response", says the same statement.

If HIV-1 infection, the most common virus that causes AIDS, these functions are not fully achieved: the virus infects cells and incomplete "diminishes as probably the optimal intensity of immune reactions" from that virus.

Dendritic cells are efficiently infected by other viruses related to HIV-1 and HIV-2 and simian virus SIV, which have a particular viral protein, which is not contained in the HIV-1 protein known as VPX.

French researchers, whose work was coordinated by Monsef Benkirane, from the Institut de Génétique humaine CNRS in Montpellier (France) noted that dendritic cells are more susceptible to HIV-1 infection when they are "manipulated" VPX protein specific to HIV-2 and SIV viruses. They were isolated as interacting with cellular proteins VPX and identified this as one nine protein, called SAMHD1.

According to study authors, this protein "inhibits all stages of the primary viral cycle, preventing virus replication. It is one that "limits the ability of HIV-1 virus to infect dendritic cells", which allows the virus to "escape the immune response.

French scientists' discovery "opens new perspectives in basic research, but also for teams trying to obtain a preventive and therapeutic vaccine, designed to dendritic cells.

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