The new dual CAR T cell immunotherapy promises to target the HIV reservoir

More than 35 million individuals around the world are affected by the global HIV epidemic. A regular treatment that can control but not cure HIV infection is antiretroviral therapy (ART). For many people living with HIV, however, access and lifelong adherence to a daily routine is a major obstacle. The viral reservoir, copies of HIV locked away in the genome of infected cells, is a significant obstacle to HIV treatment. If treatment with ART is avoided, the virus is able to produce new copies of itself easily, leading eventually to the development of AIDS. For patients with HIV, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, widely used in cancer therapies, give an immunotherapy choice. The cells cause CARs to be expressed by the patient's own T cells, which re-program the T cells to identify and remove particular infected cells. According to the study authors, while currently used to treat cancer, the therapy could potentially convert into HIV-infected cells. By engineering two CARs into a single T cell, this Dual CAR T cell, a new form of CAR T cell, was made. Each CAR had a CD4 protein that allowed it to attack HIV-infected cells and a costimulatory domain that indicated that the immune function of the CAR T cell had increased. The 4-1BB co-stimulatory domain, which enhances cell proliferation and durability, was used in the first CAR, whereas the second has the co-stimulatory domain CD28, which strengthens its ability to kill infected cells. The investigators also added a protein designed to prevent HIV from binding to and infecting the cell, since HIV targets T cells. According to the news release, the final CAR T cell was long-lived, repeated in response to HIV infection, effectively destroyed infected cells and was partly immune to HIV infection. The team saw slower HIV replication and fewer HIV infected cells than in untreated animals when the safe Dual CAR T cells were given to HIV-infected mice. They also saw reduced levels of virus and preservation in the blood of these animals of CD4 + T cells, HIV 's favoured target. Moreover, when Dual CAR T cells were mixed with ART in mice infected with HIV, the virus was more quickly suppressed, leading to a smaller viral reservoir than in mice treated only with ART. This review tells about the future scope of the new invention towards the field of HIV /AIDS and their medicinal treatment. People who are interested can send their article towards our journal for publication through this https://www.scholarscentral.org/submissions/hiv-aids-research.html