Scientists discovered the HIV virus has an insatiable sweet tooth that could be used as a weapon against it.
After the virus invades an immune cell, it gets a strong craving for sugar to facilitate its rapid growth and journey to spread throughout the body, Northwestern University reported. Researchers found the "switch" that triggers the cell to provide this sugar can be blocked with an experimental compound, causing the HIV invader to starve to death.
"This compound can be the precursor for something that can be used in the future as part of a cocktail to treat HIV that improves on the effective medicines we have today," said corresponding study author, Harry Taylor, research assistant professor in medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "It's essential to find new ways to block HIV growth, because the virus is constantly mutating. A drug targeting HIV that works today may be less effective a few years down the road, because HIV can mutate itself to evade the drug."
The researchers found the first step to blocking a T cell's "pantry" was to turn on a cell component called phospholipase D1 (PLD1). They then used an experimental compound to effectively block PLD1 and close up the pipeline.
The new technique was also found to slow the growth of abnormally activated immune cells, which is not possible with current HIV treatments. The growth of these excess immune cells has been linked to persistence of HIV and organ damage related to inflammation.
"Perhaps this new approach, which slows the growth of the immune cells, could reduce the dangerous inflammation and thwart the life-long persistence of HIV," Taylor said.
In the future, the researchers hope to identify additional compounds that could also control T cells' pantries to effectively treat HIV.
"This discovery opens new avenues for further research to solve today's persisting problems in treating HIV infection: avoiding virus resistance to medicines, decreasing the inflammation that leads to premature aging, and maybe even one day being able to cure HIV infection," said Dr. Richard D'Aquila, director of Northwestern's HIV Translational Research Center.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal PLOS Pathogens.
