Current Strategies to Eliminate Latent HIV Infection

A special issue of Biomolecules (ISSN 2218-273X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 488

Special Issue Editors

Department of Biomedical Sciences, Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine, Provo, UT, USA
Interests: HIV; latency; CRISPR; gene-editing
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA
Interests: microbiology; inflammation; aging; immunosenescence

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

HIV infects a variety of cells in the body, establishing latent HIV infection in long-lived cells such as memory CD4+ T-cells, hematopoietic stem cells, dendritic cells, and monocyte-macrophages in places such as the blood, brain, gut-associated lymphoid tissue, bone marrow, and genital tract. Latent HIV reservoirs are established during the earliest stage of HIV infection. These latently infected cells are reactivated from time to time and produce low quantities of HIV particles, which explains why viremia persists.

Antiretroviral therapy (ARTs) is effective at inhibiting HIV replication but fails to eliminate the virus from the body. To regulate or remove the HIV latent reservoir, several treatment options are being studied. These include either the total eradication of all persistent HIV (sterilization) or the immunological control of persistent HIV (functional cure). The “shock and kill” approach is the focus of contemporary sterilization cure research. Small molecules that stimulate HIV transcription (latency reactivating agents) are utilized in this technique to drive the reactivation of latent HIV infection in these cells along with antiretroviral therapy. Recently, clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR-Cas9) technology have been utilized to eradicate the HIV-1 latent reservoir by editing out the viral genome. In addition, many studies have focused on using nanotechnology-based anti-retroviral, CRISPR-Cas9, and other small molecule drug delivery targeting these HIV sanctuaries. The purpose of this thematic issue is to call for all basic and translational studies on exploring HIV-1 latency, novel drugs, and drug-delivery approaches targeting latent HIV infection in various parts of the body. 

Dr. Venkata Atluri
Dr. Venkateswara Gogulamudi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomolecules is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers

There is no accepted submissions to this special issue at this moment.
Back to TopTop