LOS ANGELES (U-WIRE) — Cocaine increases the replication of the HIV virus in human cells, a new University of California, Los Angeles, study shows.
UCLA AIDS Institute scientists have shown the injection of cocaine in an animal model dramatically increases the spread of HIV infection.
Dr. Gayle C. Baldwin, associate professor of hematology-oncology and the primary investigator, and her colleagues first inoculated mice — bred specifically without immune systems — with human cells, since the virus infects only human cells.
The human cells then were infected with the virus itself. Four days following the infection, researchers injected liquid cocaine in half the mice; the other half received saline placebos. After only 10 days, the count for HIV-infected cells were surprising, researchers said.
“We saw a 200-fold increase in AIDS viral load in the blood of the animals injected with the cocaine compared to those that received the placebo,” Baldwin said.
Two other findings were also of great interest to the researchers.
One was the acceleration, or frequency, of HIV-infected cells, and the other was a nine-fold drop in CD4 T-cells in the human cells, according to a statement released by the UCLA health sciences. CD4 T-cells are the human immune cells that HIV targets to destroy the immune system.
“The cocaine increased HIV’s efficiency so dramatically that it nearly wiped out the CD4 T-cells,” Baldwin said.
The study answered many suspicions researchers had about drugs and its effects on the immune system, said Dr. Beth Jamieson, director of UCLA’s Flow Cytometry Core.
Baldwin and her colleagues have been studying the effects of drugs on the immune system for the past 10 years.
Anecdotes that suggest cocaine’s impact on the immune system also suggest cocaine’s influence on HIV, since both cause damage to the system — though in different degrees.
The study will help researchers understand the pathology of the HIV virus and the co-factors involved in making it more virulent, Jamieson said.
The study’s findings will give researchers and society a different perspective on HIV drug therapy and drug therapy in general, she added.
“We know that cocaine — a drug — increases the replication of HIV,” Jamieson said.
Antiretroviral drugs are used to decrease viral infections. If drugs can influence the spread of infections, as in the case of AIDS and cocaine, Jamieson said, then there may be some instances in which drugs can slow the process of a spreading disease.
Though no direct jump can be made from mice to humans, the study gave researchers the capability to pick apart the underlining components.
Because cocaine is often abused in society, researchers believe the study will assist in educating individuals toward or away from specific behaviors.
“We have a system that shows cocaine’s effects on HIV. It’s relevant to humans,” Baldwin said.
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