HIV’s Reservoir May Differ in the Gut Compared With in Blood

[Jim Allen]

What was the point?

We have studies showing if ART is started immediately after an individual becomes infected a lower level of viral reservoir can be achieved than for those starting treatment in later stage disease, and over the decades that vial loads in various   tissues including the gut differ from blood and that latent HIV differs and the impact or none impact of ART on certain locations, tissues, correlations blood to other viral loads etc etc etc

So 2018 ... we did the below study, why? Maybe I am too stupid but I am not seeing a question to answer 

Please standby for 2019 We will study the ultimate question "Is water wet?"

Nov. 2018
https://www.poz.com/article/hivs-reservoir-may-differ-gut-compared-blood

The viral reservoir of nonreplicating HIV-infected cells may have different qualities in the gut compared with in blood.

Publishing their findings in PLOS Pathogens, researchers drew biopsies from people with fully suppressed HIV. They analyzed differences in HIV’s method of transcribing itself in cells.

Transcription is a key part of the viral life cycle within a cell. Infected cells that do not transcribe and therefore are not replicating are considered latently infected. The state of latency leaves them under the radar of standard antiretroviral treatment, which works only on replicating cells.

The study authors found that the mechanisms that block viral transcription and support a state of latency differ between HIV-infected cells in the gut and those in the blood. These findings suggest that infected gut cells may be inclined to a deeper state of latency compared with those in the blood. Consequently, HIV cure therapies may be less effective at reversing such latency in infected gut cells.

Some minor examples on the gut, I have dozen more, on viral reservoirs in the gut and ART penetration and/or lack of effect on latent cells going back years.
 
2017
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4928570/
Tissue Reservoirs of HIV

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28414780
Sensitive quantification of the HIV-1 reservoir in gut-associated lymphoid tissue.

2010
https://jvi.asm.org/content/85/10/4772
The Gut Mucosal Viral Reservoir in HIV-Infected Patients Is Not the Major Source of Rebound Plasma Viremia following Interruption of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

2007
https://retrovirology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4690-4-87
Compartmentalization of the gut viral reservoir in HIV-1 infected patients