mRNA vaccines awakes latent HIV

And exposes it to CD8 cells.

I was in the process of writing a piece about a news article making the rounds, but this paper from earlier today gets priority.

SARS CoV-2 mRNA vaccination exposes latent HIV to Nef-specific CD8+ T-cells

First, we need to explain certain terminology. I will keep my own observations about latency to myself this time. One of the hallmarks of HIV is its capacity to create reservoirs and stay latent and reactivate at a later time for a variety of reasons. The virus stays “silent” and it is not detected by the immune system.

LRA per what the name suggests is a type of treatment that received attention as a means to have more effective control and potentially clearing of the virus someday within the infected, but so far said treatments only showed a sign of increased viruses, but without reduction of any type of measurements they used. Or signs that CD8 cells were engaged (CD8 is what you need to clear infection in a lot of situations).

The Pfizer mRNA vaccine activates the RIG-I/TLR – TNF – NFκb, an important part of your immune system, resulting in taking the virus off latency. Unlike in other tests, this activates the T Cell response to recognizing an early important protein from HIV, the NEF, which leads to them measuring CD8 activity and reduction of HIV persistence.

What I found fascinating about this paper was the first highlighted section. Using an accessory (Nef) the authors conclude this protein mediates immunoevasion via reducing MHC-I levels. If you read “The Other Proteins of SARS-CoV-2” you will know the relevance of such a mechanism, in fact, SARS-CoV-2 now can stop both MHC-I and II… but I digress.

The paper itself has a few important findings for HIV and in regards to the mechanisms of how the immune system behaves after vaccination but nothing exactly new around here in this regard.

What I find fascinating is the exact mechanism that leads to the activation of latent infection, and a few other infections could follow a similar pattern. TLR-dependent NF-κB activation facilitates the establishment of latent infection. It is an established fact that all Spike-centric vaccines cause reactivation of all sorts of latent pathogens, not merely viral, and the vaccine immune suppress the person for a good few weeks. At this point, it is easy to deduce, that among the myriad of effects the mRNA vaccines have on the body, they are clearly creating new latent infections of other pathogens in many people and after a certain threshold, activating said pathogens.

I believe this paper has some clues to the future of both infections, so there is one of the reasons I am writing this one.

And since I rather hold a high dislike towards content.

Persistent T Cell Repertoire Perturbation and T Cell Activation in HIV After Long Term Treatment

The diversity of T cell receptor repertoires in PLHIV on long term anti-retroviral therapy remains significantly depleted, and skewed by idiosyncratic clones, partly attributable to altered thymic output and associated with T cell mediated chronic immune activation. Further investigation of thymic function and the antigenic drivers of T cell clonal selection in PLHIV are critical to efforts to fully re-establish normal immune function.

Our data are consistent with a model in which thymic dysfunction may lead to repopulation of the T cell repertoire with clones that have greater propensity for functional dysregulation, for example as a result of autoreactivity or abnormal MHC restriction and manifest in the peripheral blood transcriptome with evidence of increased T cell activation. Such a model represents an important paradigm shift in our understanding of the mechanisms of chronic immune activation among PLHIV. In view of the relationship between chronic immune activation and adverse clinical outcomes in long-term ART-treated PLHIV, answers to these questions may inform novel therapeutic approaches to restore normal immune function in HIV infection and further reduce chronic morbidity in this population.

Paxlovid posts and the one about the thymus will give your clues.

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