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Anti-cancer drug activates latent HIV
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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A synthetic drug that triggers a signaling pathway to activate latent HIV lying dormant inside T cells has just been reported. And here's a new important piece of information on the same topic, coming from the University of North Carolina (USA): one of the drugs used to treat certain types of lymphomas can flush out latent, drug-resistant human immunodeficiency virus.
As is known, the existence of reservoir cells containing latent HIV, present in them in a dormant state and not subject to attacks by antiretroviral drugs, is the main reason for the immediate return of the infection as soon as the patient stops therapy. It is obvious that in order to defeat HIV, it is necessary to find a way to cleanse such "reservoirs".
North Carolina scientists led by Dr. David Margolis conducted a series of experiments to determine the potential utility of vorinostat, an anti-cancer drug from a class of drugs called deacetylase inhibitors, in activating and destroying dormant HIV. Preliminary in vitro experiments measuring levels of HIV activity in CD4+ T immune cells showed that vorinostat was indeed able to disturb the dormant virus.
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After the laboratory success, the doctors set up an experiment on humans, targeting eight brave people with a stable zero number of viral particles in their blood (HIV is completely suppressed by therapy). And here is the result: patients taking vorinostat demonstrated an almost fivefold increase in the level of viral RNA in CD4+ T cells. Thus, it was once again proven that the virus is successfully activated.
Thus, this work is the first to demonstrate the potential of a deacetylase inhibitor in the treatment of latent HIV (in combination with antiretroviral drugs).