News and Events > Advance in Detecting and Isolating HIV-infected Cells Announced - June 10, 2002

Advance in Detecting and Isolating HIV-infected Cells Announced - June 10, 2002

Scientists at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center have discovered how to detect and isolate HIV-infected cells from blood and other tissues. This method represents the first technique for rapidly identifying and isolating HIV-infected cells. It is based on research that reveals a key new step in how HIV reproduces itself and the ways that the virus tries to escape detection by the body's immune system.

"This discovery has immediate value for clinicians treating patients with HIV," said Alex Franzusoff, PhD, associate professor of cellular and structural biology at the CU-Health Sciences Center, and principal investigator of the study, which will be published tomorrow in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The new method for detecting, isolating and targeting infected cells relies on 'cell-sorting' similar to that being used to monitor the number of CD4 T cells in HIV-infected people. CD4 T cells are the cells that become infected by the HIV virus.

"We have discovered the 'flag' that identifies which cells in the blood are actively making new virus," Franzusoff said. "This method could change how clinicians evaluate HIV infection and monitor the effects of anti-viral drugs. It can also be used as a reliable marker for monitoring progression to AIDS. Since individual HIV-infected cells can now be isolated, we can search for new ways to kill these cells before they have a chance to spread the virus."

The study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), suggests that HIV has evolved unique ways to replicate in T cells. Based on this study, the current view of the sequence of events that lead to the production of virus in the body's T cells may need to be revised. By keeping all of the activities for virus production inside the cell until the last moments, HIV sidesteps simple ways for the immune system to detect virally infected cells.

This new method of detection takes advantage of a normal cell protein, CTLA4, which shows up on the surface of infected T cells at the time they are making new virus. Clinical studies from other groups have proven that people with higher levels of virus in their blood also have higher numbers of T cells that show CTLA4 on their surface.

Improved understanding of the sequence of events is key to finding new methods to block new virus formation, thus slowing or preventing the spread of the disease, according to researchers.

Co-authors on the study include Luis R. Miranda, Brian Schaefer, Abraham Kupfer, and Zixin Hu, representing the CU-Health Sciences Center, the CU Cancer Center, National Jewish Medical and Research Center and GlobeImmune Inc. The study is available at www.pnas.org.

The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center is one of four campuses in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver and Aurora, Colorado, the center includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry, a graduate school and two hospitals. For more information, visit the Web site at www.uchsc.edu.

The University of Colorado Office of Technology Transfer is responsible for managing the commercialization of university discoveries. For licensing opportunities relating to this technology visit Information for the Business Community on this Web site or contact Vivian Dullien at 303.724.1329.