Paper ties new target to latent HIV infection in T cells

In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, a French team led by researchers at the University of Montpellier discovered that a surface receptor on T cells, Fc gamma receptor IIa (FCGR2A; CD32A), could be used to identify and target T cells latently infected with HIV.

The study showed FCGR2A is specifically expressed by latently infected human T cells in vitro, and not expressed on uninfected T cells or those induced to actively produce virus. The authors suggested FCGR2A could serve as a biomarker for tracking the size of the viral reservoir and as a target to enable selective killing of latently infected cells...