Potential Safer Drug for Containment of Lentivirus Infection and Ensuing Cytopenias: Necessity of Clinical Trials in Control and Infected Patients

Abstract

Hematopoietic stem cells which are present in bone marrow, cord blood and liver, terminally differentiate into multiple lineages of blood cell types and thus have applications in bone marrow transplantation. The determination of alleviation of cytopenias in HIV infection in vivo [severe combined immunodeficient transplanted with human fetal thymus and liver tissues, SCID-hu] has been utilized through assay of inhibition of hematopoietic stem cell colony formation ex vivo [1]. Cytopenias or hematopoietic inhibition (decreased blood cells formation) is a common occurrence in HIV infected patients both due to the virus but also caused in synergistic manner by the antiretroviral drugs (AZT or Zidovudine, ddI, certain protease inhibitors) [2]. Experimental observations for the indirect inhibition of the hematopoietic CD34+ stem cell colony forming activity by HIV infected T-cells were previously proposed or reported by us elsewhere in 1990’sand also bysome other investigators, from other institutions [1 and references therein]. The potential biologically occurring Sulfatide (3-O-sulfogalactosylceramide), which is non-specific to only