Reservoir targets

As priorities in HIV drug development are shifting from suppressing viral replication to clearing the virus completely, attention has turned toward eliminating the latent viral reservoir. Toward that end, a group of Italian researchers has pinpointed one of the mechanisms involved in maintaining a persistent, latent infection, and identified two potential targets within it.

In a study published in Nature Communications last month, Eugenio Montini and colleagues at San Raffaele Hospital reported that HIV DNA insertions up-regulate expression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 5B (STAT5B) and BTB and CNC homology 2 (BACH2) in Tregs of patients undergoing combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), driving proliferation of the immunosuppressive cells and possibly explaining one way the virus survives during antiviral therapy. Montini is unit head of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy...