Abstract
Understanding the mechanism by which human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) kills CD4+ T lymphocytes is important to the development of therapeutic and prophylactic strategies. Recent studies have indicated that, in some cases, progression to AIDS is associated with the appearance of syncytium-inducing, T cell line-tropic HIV-1 variants. Nevertheless, approximately 50% of subjects with AIDS harbor only non-syncytium-inducing, macrophagetropic (NSI-M) variants of HIV-1. In most asymptomatic patients, NSI-M HIV-1 isolates are the predominant virus type found. We report here that cytopathicity of NSI-M HIV-1 for primary CD4+ T lymphocytes can be directly detected in vitro. The extent of CD4+ T-cell killing was not completely correlated with the rate of viral replication, suggesting that other characteristics of HIV-1 contribute to its cytopathicity. Our findings suggest that: (i) direct killing by NSI-M HIV-1 may contribute to CD4+ T-lymphocyte depletion in vivo, and (ii) the determinants of HIV-1 cytopathicity for CD4+ T lymphocytes and cell tropism or syncytia-forming ability are not necessarily tightly linked.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 10237-10241 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 91 |
Issue number | 21 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 11 1994 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- AIDS
- CD4
- T lymphocytes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General