Cancer drug reduces HIV viral reservoir in monkey study

A study found that the cancer drug venetoclax can reduce the latent reservoir of the AIDS virus.

Researchers from Emory University and other institutions published the findings in the international journal Nature Microbiology on the 7th (local time).

In a study in monkeys, the researchers said venetoclax, approved as a leukemia treatment, rapidly and durably reduced the reservoir of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV).

SIV is a virus similar to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). People with HIV use antiretroviral therapy (ART) to suppress viral replication, but dormant infected cells remain, and the virus begins replicating again if treatment is stopped.

Venetoclax is a drug that inhibits BCL-2, a protein that prevents cell death. Just as cancer cells depend on this protein to survive, latently infected immune cells also survive for long periods through the same mechanism.

The researchers infected monkeys, started ART on day 14, and observed them for 294 days, dividing them into groups that received venetoclax alone or in combination with another drug.

The group that received venetoclax had a substantially smaller intact SIV reservoir in the blood and lymph nodes than the control group that received ART alone. Infection levels remained low for months after the 10-day treatment ended.

The researchers analyzed that the remaining immune cells survived by increasing expression of other antiapoptotic proteins, and that extending venetoclax treatment or combining it with drugs targeting other proteins could improve the clearance effect.

This proof-of-concept study was the first to demonstrate the reservoir-reducing effect of venetoclax in a nonhuman primate model. The researchers said clinical trials in people with HIV have already begun based on these findings.