Researchers at McGill University have reported unexpected results from laboratory experiments with lithium, a cheap and already approved drug for treating bipolar disorder and other mood disorders. In a study published in the journal iScience, scientists found that lithium can suppress HIV reactivation in infected human cells, i.e., keep the virus in a “dormant” state that prevents it from actively replicating again.
This discovery could be an important clue in the development of new therapeutic strategies aimed at achieving so-called “functional” cure of HIV — a state in which the virus remains inactive without the need for constant daily therapy.
The results of the experiments showed that lithium directly suppresses the reactivation of the virus in laboratory conditions — there was no such clear evidence before. This gives researchers hope that the effects of lithium can be mimicked in future drugs with fewer side effects than the psychotropic drug itself. However, the authors of the study immediately caution that this discovery only applies to cells in a test tube, and lithium should not be used to treat people with HIV outside of clinical trials, as it has significant side effects and has not yet been tested on patients as an anti-HIV agent.
The scientists also found that the mechanism of action of lithium is not related to the activation of autophagy, the process of cell “recycling” that was previously thought to be key. In the new study, the effect of lithium persisted even when this pathway was artificially disrupted, indicating the presence of other, as yet not fully understood, biological pathways that may be important for controlling viral reactivation. These new data may serve as a starting point for the development of future drugs that will promote long-term suppression of HIV and reduce the need for ongoing daily therapy.
It should be noted that researchers from Australia were the first to use mRNA to successfully remove HIV from its latent state.