UC Davis researchers have discovered that the HIV virus is able to survive efforts to destroy it by hiding out in the mucosal tissues of the intestine. In a study led by Satya Dandekar, professor and chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at UC Davis, researchers also found that HIV continues to replicate in the gut mucosa, suppressing immune function in patients being treated with antiretroviral therapy, even when blood samples from the same individuals indicated the treatment was working.

Results of the three-year study, which appeared in the Journal of Virology, suggest that patients being treated with antiretroviral therapy should be monitored using gut biopsies and that the gut's immune function be restored through earlier antiretroviral treatment and the use of antiinflammatory medications.