BYU professors and students are part of a team of researchers who discovered a human cell reservoir, which can harbor HIV in its infectious state, thus allowing the virus to escape drug or immune system intervention.

This reservoir is found on follicular dendritic cells (FDCs), which are located on lymphoid tissues throughout the body. After being infected, large quantities of HIV get trapped on FDCs and remain there until the FDCs are destroyed.

These cells do not exhibit behavior, such as replicating and mutating, which is looked for by medications targeting HIV, Greg Burton, BYU professor of biochemistry told the Deseret News. Because of this, the virus hides in FDC cells and escapes being killed by treatment.

FDC cells do not become infected, as do other cells that harbor the virus; they are simply a reservoir that contains the HIV. Because the cells are not infected, treatments have not been able to detect them in the past.

Changna Wang, a biochemistry graduate student who has worked with Professor Burton on this research, confirmed these facts.

"The virus is trapped on the reservoir and can stay in a resting phase for a long time," Wang said. "Then, a stimulus comes and stimulates the FDC and the virus becomes active again."

This explains why previous HIV treatments used in the past could not cure the virus. The FDC cells, which harbor the virus, keep it in an infectious form. They then contaminate other cells when they come in contact with them.

Burton told the Deseret News that he believes that this research can provide scientists with the information necessary to target the virus that's stored on the FDC.

"If we could go in and perhaps flush it from the surface of the cell, we might decrease dramatically the amount of virus that could perpetuate infection," Burton said, as quoted in the Deseret News.

The research will contribute greatly in developing new HIV treatments.

"This is very important," Wang said. "If we can discover how the virus is trapped, we might find a way to cure patients with HIV."

She said researchers would like to be able to find a way to cure the virus while it is still in the reservoir stage.

Because FDCs collect samples of the virus over time, as opposed to mutating the virus, researchers are now able to see how the virus has changed by capturing various little pieces of it.

Furthermore, FDCs are able to harbor many other viruses and substances, Wang said. For this reason, the research may contribute to the study of allergy and autoimmune diseases, as well.

BYU professors worked in conjunction with John Hopkins School of Medicine and the University of Minnesota, which provided HIV tissue samples for the research, Wang said.

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