Genetic Tagging Offers Promise in Identifying Latent HIV Cells: Benjamin K. Chen, MD, PhD

Benjamin K. Chen, MD, PhD, professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, spoke about the results of his recently published study, which found that researchers could genetically tag immune cells with latent HIV. Chen was the senior author on the study published in Nature Communications.

This transcript was lightly edited; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

Can you explain the result of your study on genetically tagging immune cells with HIV?

Yeah, my pleasure. HIV causes a chronic infection for which we have great antiretroviral drugs. But presently, the virus is still incurable, and that's because the virus has the ability to lay dormant in very rare cells in the immune system and even in a treated patient. These cells are exceedingly rare to isolate and study in patients. We've figured out a way to develop a genetically modified mouse with human cells in it, which allows us to use a genetic switch technology to detect those very, very rare latent cells so we can enrich them greatly. We've studied their genetic properties in great detail, giving us insights into what makes those latent cells unique.

How can genetically tagging cells with HIV potentially change treatment for HIV moving forward?

With the technology that we've used in these humanized mice—these mice with human immune systems—we can isolate lots of these cells. With those cells, we've done something, used a technology called single cell sequencing, and identified single cell genetic signatures that are occurring more frequently in these latent cells as compared to the nonlatent cells. We have an opportunity here to think of ways to use this knowledge to maybe reverse the patterns which enforce latency. The whole idea is to reawaken cells which are latent, so that the immune system, or with additional therapies, we could affect the cure potentially and eliminate the latent reservoir.