How HIV disrupts immune system revealed

Washington: HIV-infected people whose immune systems made neutralising antibodies have similar immune alterations, or perturbations, as found in individuals with autoimmune disease, revealed a study.

According to the study published in Journal Science Immunology, the researchers found several key immune differences that should help in the development of a how-to manual for an effective vaccine.

The researchers studied 100 HIV-infected people whose immune systems eventually made antibodies capable of broadly neutralising the virus and half whose immune systems did not.

In earlier work, the researchers studied a person with both HIV and a form of lupus erythematosus, which is an autoimmune disease. The person’s immune system both controlled the virus and developed broadly neutralising antibodies. The researchers have hypothesised that the same immune disruptions that caused the person to develop lupus were somehow enabling the broadly neutralizing antibodies to fulfil their potential and fight the virus.

The study suggested that for a broadly neutralising antibody-inducing HIV vaccine to be successful, there will be need to mimic with vaccination the immune perturbations that occur in the setting of HIV infection.

--IANS