A research team has now, for the first time, isolated single cells from stubborn HIV reservoirs and characterized their gene activity, suggesting potential new cure strategies.
This microscopic device is one of three that together separate out individual HIV-infected immune cells from blood samples and trap their genetic contents in droplets for analysis.Curing HIV infections remains one of the most formidable challenges in biomedicine, in part because cells that hold the viral DNA in their chromosomes persist in the face of powerful drugs and immune responses.
Efforts to develop simpler and safer cures for the other 38.4 million people living with the virus have been dogged by a fundamental obstacle: HIV persists in pockets of cells by going silent. After entering a human cell and integrating its DNA into the host chromosomes, HIV remains invisible to attack unless it starts to produce new viruses.
The new work dodged this dilemma by using a technique that isolates single, infected cells as tiny amounts of blood move through three microfluidic devices developed by physicist Adam Abate at the University of California, San Francisco, and bioengineer Iain Clark at UC Berkeley. In essence, the devices push the blood through channels in microchips that trap individual cells in droplets, allowing them to be cut open so that other instruments can read their genetic material.
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