Important note: Information in this article was accurate in August 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; August 5, 2002
Michael Greer, Senior Medical Writer
"Dendritic cells (DC) support human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) transmission by capture of the virus particle in the mucosa and subsequent transport to the draining lymph node, where HIV-1 is presented to CD4+ Th cells," explained Rogier W. Sanders and colleagues working at the University of Amsterdam. "The mechanism of viral transmission from DC to T cells is currently unknown."
An adhesion molecule expressed by Th1 DCs appears to play a key role in the process of T cell infection, Sanders and coauthors found.
The researchers investigated possible discrepancies in infection ability between subsets of effector DCs. These cells promote either cytotoxic Th1 or antibody-based Th2 immune activity, they said.
Viral transmission by Th1 effector DCs was much more efficient than that of Th2 DCs, study data showed. Perhaps not coincidentally, Th1 effector DCs express intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) at high levels compared with their Th2-promoting counterparts.
This association was supported by experiments showing that ICAM-1 inhibition reduced the efficiency of HIV transmission by DCs (Differential transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 by distinct subsets of effector dendritic cells. J Virol 2002 Aug;76(15):7812-21.
"The ICAM-1-LFA-1 interaction is known to be important for immunological cross talk between DC and T cells, and our results indicate that this cell-cell contact is exploited by HIV-1 for efficient transmission," Sanders and colleagues concluded.
The corresponding author for this report is Ben Berkhout, Department of Human Retrovirology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 15, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, Netherlands. E-mail: b.berkhout@amc.uva.nl.
Key points reported in this study include:
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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