Worldwide HIV is a serious infectious health problem infecting over 40 million people. People living with HIV are treated with antiretroviral therapy as the favoured therapeutic option for over 30 years which only prevents progression of the disease to AIDS, it doesn’t actually cure the patient.
The immune system normally produces powerful molecules during viral infections called interferon which interferes with the infection and replication of viruses. Interferon activates a line of molecules within the body via the signalling pathway that causes the body to produce antivirals to help rid the infection.
HIV patients treated with antiretroviral therapy are not fully cleared of the HIV virus by the immune system. This study was conducted to investigate whether HIV was avoiding immune responses by blocking the interferon signally pathway. Results of the study confirmed the researchers suspicions.
HIV promotes destruction of interferon antiviral signalling pathway using machinery within the body’s cells to do the dirty work, enabling the virus to decrease production of many important anti-viral molecules without which the immune system is not able to clear infection.
The discovery sheds much needed light on how HIV avoids elimination, explaining why it is still not a curable disease, and could mark a paradigm shift in understanding how the disease evades immune responses, opening doors to a new era of research to cure and eradicate the virus.
