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On May 5, a story published online in Nature reported a recent study of the gene HLA B57, identified in the late 1990s as occurring in a high percentage of HIV-positive people who never progressed to AIDS, about one in 200 positive individuals. A team of researchers from the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Harvard studied nearly 2,000 patients—1,100 "HIV controllers" and 800 who progressed normally to AIDS.According to the report, the research team, led by MIT Professor Arup Chakraborty and Harvard Professor Bruce Walker, found that “the HLA B57 gene causes the body to make more potent killer T-cells, the blood cells that help defend the body from infections. Patients with the gene have a larger number of T-cells that bind strongly to more pieces of HIV protein than people who do not have the gene. This makes the T-cells cross-reactive or more likely to recognize cells that express HIV proteins, including mutated versions of the virus that develop during infection.”
This new knowledge could help researchers develop vaccines that provoke the same response to HIV that individuals with HLA B57 muster on their own, says Walker, director of the Ragon Institute and a professor at Harvard Medical School.
The finding offers hope that researchers could design a vaccine to help draw out cross-reactive T-cells in people who don't have the HLA B57 gene. "It's not that they don't have cross-reactive T-cells," says Chakraborty. "They do have them, but they're much rarer, and we think they might be coaxed into action with the right vaccine."
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
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