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HIV-specific immunotoxin can kill cells in which the virus continues to multiply despite antiretroviral therapy.
These are the data obtained by scientists from North Carolina during experiments on mice..
Doctor J. Victor Garcia of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues treated mice with an antiretroviral cocktail for 4 weeks..
Therapy led to a decrease in the viral load, but not to the complete destruction of HIV in the organs.
The researchers then gave half of the rodents a 2-week dose of the HIV-specific immunotoxin 3B3-PE38, which was created at the US National Institutes of Health back in the late 90s..
The other half of the animals continued to be kept only on an antiretroviral cocktail.
As expected, the first group showed a sharp decrease in the number of HIV-infected cells in the body..
These results, published in PLOS Pathogens, open up new possibilities for targeted cytotoxic therapy..
Scientists noted that they have other, possibly more effective HIV-specific immunotoxins at their disposal..
medbe. en.