Cell therapies for treatment of human immunodeficiency virus infection.
After the serendipitous discovery of HIV eradication in the "Berlin patient", interest has grown in curing HIV infection by replacing the patient's replication-competent blood cells with infection-resistant ones. At the same time, induced pluripotent stem cell technologies and genetic engineering have boosted cell therapy transfer into the clinic. Currently available cell therapy approaches to attempt to cure HIV infection include the following: (1) Transplantation of autologous or allogeneic cells spontaneously resistant or edited to resist HIV infection; (2) Transplantation of autologous T-lymphocytes spontaneously targeting or redirected against HIV; and (3) Transplantation of autologous cells engineered to work as anti-HIV antibody factories. We review here the preliminary results and potential for future applications of these approaches.
Retrovirus Center and Virology Section, Department of Translational Research and of New Surgical and Medical Technologies, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
Daniele
D
Focosi
Fabrizio
F
Maggi
Luca
L
Ceccherini-Nelli
Mauro
M
Pistello
D000818:Animals; D023241:Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active; D064987:Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy / Q000379:methods; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D015316:Genetic Therapy / Q000379:methods; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy* / Q000821:virology*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000502:physiology*; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D056189:Viral Tropism; D014779:Virus Replication