Cocaine And HIV: Drug Use Increases Risk Of Infection

New findings published in the journal Scientific Reports show a connection between cocaine use and potential HIV infection.

Researchers at the UCLA AIDS Institute and Center for AIDS Research used an advanced form of humanized mice to study the effects of cocaine. All of the mice were immunodeficient and engineered to have a human-like immune system.

During the research, the team used the most advanced humanized mouse model, called BLT. The name means mice with human hematopoietic stem cells (B for blood cells) and donor-matched liver (L) and thymus (T) tissues with results that show the development of a functioning human immune system.

"This study is the first of its kind using this model,' said Dimitrios Vatakis, the study's senior author and an assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology/oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, in a news release. "The BLT has been used to study HIV latency, cancer immunotherapy and now drug abuse and HIV infection. It very closely resembles the human immune system and it is the most relevant."

Researchers separated the mice into two major groups, with half being injected with cocaine every day for five days and the other half injected with a saline solution. Five days later, half of the mice were injected with HIV-1. Then all of the mice were given saline or cocaine for two more weeks.

Throughout this period, researchers collected blood and tissue samples to measure infection levels and the effects of cocaine.

Findings revealed that the HIV/cocaine group had higher amounts of the virus in their body than the HIV/saline group. Furthermore, the findings showed that nine of the 19 saline/HIV mice had undetectable amounts of the virus when compared with only three of the 19 cocaine/HIV mice.

However, the findings were rather surprising regarding cocaine and inflammation prior to infection. The study noted that "CD4 T cells that HIV targets were not overtly activated. Also, CD8 T cells, which kill infected cells, were not functional, even though they appeared to be so."

"This points to cocaine blunting the potency of our body's defense against the virus," Vatakis concluded.

Still, researchers reiterated that the effects of this combination on a small animal, such as a mouse, will not fully re-create real-life settings. The next stages of the research will require using the same BLT model to determine how cocaine abuse might affect HIV transmission in mucosal membranes such as vaginal and anal tissues and how taking medication to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV may be affected by cocaine use or, in turn, how cocaine use can affect viral latency.

Related Articles

Common Drug For Genital Herpes May Also Help Treat HIV

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).