(Newswire.net — May 6, 2017) — In a groundbreaking study, researchers from the United States reported that they have managed to eliminate HIV from mice with infected human immune cells, Russia Today reports.
This is the first study to successfully achieve complete elimination of HIV from “humanoid” animals, infected with human cells.
The study results were published in the journal Molecular Therapy.
The new study builds on a previous study conducted by the same team in 2016, which dealt with in vitro research. After scientists had successfully eliminated HIV from cells in lab dishes, this year they moved to in vivo research, transferring infected human cells into them.
Using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), a genome editing technique, scientist managed to genetically modify cells to make them recognize and fight the virus.
CRISPR, described as “a molecular scissors,” is a method that allows scientists to program ribonucleic acid (RNA) to search for and eliminated the HIV virus. Once the virus is identified, a special enzyme removes it from the cells.
According to Wenhui Hu, study leader and associate professor at the Temple University, the new study is “more comprehensive” than the previous one.
“We confirmed the data from our previous work and have improved the efficiency of our gene editing strategy,” professor Hu said, as cited by RT. He added that the study also showed that “strategy is effective in two additional mouse models, one representing acute infection in mouse cells and the other representing chronic, or latent, infection in human cells.”
The research tested three “animal models, including mice containing transplanted human cells infected with HIV that often go undetected in animal researches. This time, those cells were successfully detected and the virus has gone.
After this success, scientists will move to testing primates, which will eventually lead to trials in humans.
“The next stage would be to repeat the study in primates, a more suitable animal model where HIV infection induces disease,” Hu revealed, noting that the eventual goal is “a clinical trial in human patients.”