HIV Budding CDC
News from the field of HIV research has been pretty promising of late — this summer, we heard good news that antiretroviral treatment is superbly effective, at least when it's used correctly. And thanks to some video gamers, scientists' understanding of proteins involved in HIV keeps getting better. Now researchers have another tool in their arsenal: Stripping the virus itself of its ability to trick the human immune system.
HIV infection sends the immune system into overdrive and eventually exhausts it, which is what leads to AIDS. But removing cholesterol from HIV seems to cripple the virus' ability to over-activate part of the immune system, so it could potentially lead to a vaccine that lets the adaptive immune system attack and destroy the virus — just as it would if HIV was any other pathogen.
Dr. Adriano Boasso, an immunologist and research fellow at Imperial College London, said keeping the body’s first-responder immune cells quiet could have some benefits — the whole system may not burn out so quickly, and could potentially fight off HIV.
“Think of the immune system as a car. HIV forces the car to stay in first gear, and if you do that too long, the engine is not going to last very long,” he said in an interview. “But if we take the cholesterol away, HIV is not capable of attacking the immune system quite as well. Practically, what we’ve done is turn HIV into a normal jump-start of a car.”
Viruses replicate by invading cells and hijacking their machinery, which they use to churn out new copies of their genetic material. Among the repurposed material is cholesterol, which is important in maintaining cellular fluidity, something viruses require to interact with other cells. (This is not related to the way everyone thinks of cholesterol, which is cholesterol in the blood. That type of cholesterol, made of high-density and low-density lipoproteins, is related to heart disease, not HIV and AIDS.)
HIV quickly activates plasmacytoid dendritic cells, or pDCs, which are the first immune cells that respond to the virus. PDCs produce molecules called interferons, which both interfere with the virus’ replication and also switch on adaptive immune cells, like T cells. Boasso and other researchers believe this hyperactivation weakens the secondary immune system, undermining the body’s ability to respond.
But in a new study, Boasso and colleagues show that removing the cholesterol changes HIV, so that it cannot activate the pDCs like it normally would. By preventing these first responder cells from turning on in the first place, the secondary responders — the T cells — can organize a more effective counterassault.
“Modifying the virus affects the way the immune system sees it,” Boasso said. He said it’s like removing the weapons from HIV’s arsenal: “By removing cholesterol, we can turn those little soldiers into an armorless enemy, which can be recognized by the opponent’s army.”
Emily Deal is a postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology at the University of California-San Francisco. She studies pDC activation in viral infections, and said the cholesterol removal is allowing less of the HIV into the dendritic cells in the first place — which means there’s less of the virus for the cells to detect, which leads them to produce fewer interferons.
But keeping the pDCs from turning on could be both good and bad, she said.
“What is better for the host in the long run? Is it better to suppress replication early on, but potentially have some of your T cells die? Or what are the lon-term effects of having replication proceed in the absence of interferons, but have your T cells live?” she said. "It's a complicated system."
Ideally, further studies would look at this give-and-take relationship in monkeys, so researchers could determine if a de-cholesterolized version of HIV could be an effective form of vaccine, she said.
“I think it has a shot," she said. "However, pDCs control a lot of the immune system, and if they’re not getting turned on at all, that may have other effects. If you’re trying to use it as a vaccine, it may not induce enough of a response to be protective."
Boasso said the de-cholesterolized HIV could be studied for use in a potential vaccine, but it’s difficult to stimulate the immune system to fight off an invader when the system itself is the target.
“There’s going to be a lot of work to do,” he said.
The study, which also involved researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Milan and Innsbruck University, is published in the journal Blood.
“The fact that the atomic soul is within the body of a gigantic animal, in the body of a gigantic banyan tree, and also in the microbic germs, millions and billions of which occupy only an inch of space, is certainly very amazing.” (Shrila 
First of all, how do we know that the soul exists inside of animals and nonhuman species? Don’t many religious traditions deny the existence of souls inside of animals? Aside from taking the information from authority, we can use outward perception. We know that human beings move, develop, and leave byproducts for as long as they are alive. When death occurs, the life is deemed over, but the material elements often remain as they were prior to the person’s death. The same hands, legs and face are there, but they cease to do anything. It’s as if someone took the force of life out of the body.
Even the plants and germs have unique abilities. Some trees can live for thousands of years, while the germs can go undetected. The fly is so elusive that no one can catch it, as it buzzes around wherever it needs to go. Lest we think that these species are universally held in low esteem, just see how many human beings try to imitate their behavior. The tiger eats the flesh of other animals through killing, and similarly many human beings range the forests to shoot wild game. The trees stand naked for extended periods of time, and so the human being tries to dance with little or no clothes on for pleasure. The birds soar through the beautiful sky, and the human being desires to fly in airplanes and rocket ships that go into outer space.
Man’s curiosity is fully accounted for in the Vedas. The Vedas are full of nuance and complexities, with so many different branches of information. The root of the tree is 
Okay, so why the different species? The soul is autonomous and blissful, but based on its desires it can be placed into different homes. Think of it as the soul wanting to travel to vacation spots. Not every person chooses the same destination for a vacation. Based on their desires and past experiences they will choose to relax at specific places each year. Similarly, the soul looking to imitate God lives in different bodies from life to life, experiencing material existence and swinging back and forth on the pendulum of acceptance and rejection.
“I see souls here; I see souls there; I see souls everywhere.” Because of the amazing ability of individual sparks of spirit to fly into different forms of body, we are never alone in our journey through life. The sparks come from the original fire that is Shri Krishna, so drifting too far away from the comforting light of the Truth is never beneficial. If in the advanced human form the mind can become convinced of the need for returning back home, back to Godhead, that reward will surely be granted. The Supreme Soul is never limited in His exhibition of powers. When He should choose to act on behalf of the devoted soul, nothing can stop His forces. Shri Krishna is there for whoever wants to be with Him; that choice just needs to be made known.
