title: Plasma amino acid dysregulation after lentiviral infection.
abstract: The absence of AIDS-like symptoms in HIV-infected chimpanzees and SIV-infected African Green monkeys (AGMs) may provide important clues about the pathogenic mechanism of AIDS and about mechanisms of resistance. HIV-infected persons and SIV-infected rhesus macaques have, on the average, markedly decreased cysteine, cystine, and glutathione levels and elevated plasma glutamate concentrations. Glutamate inhibits the membrane transport of cystine and a combination of low plasma glutamate and high cystine levels was found to be correlated with high CD4+ T cell numbers even in HIV-negative healthy human individuals. We have now found that glutamate and cystine levels are also correlated with CD4+ T cell numbers in chimpanzees. But infection of chimpanzees, AGMs, and goats with HIV-1, SIV, and caprine arthritis encephalitis virus (CAEV), respectively, does not induce significant changes in plasma cystine or glutamate levels, although infected AGMs and goats have, on the average, significantly elevated plasma levels of the biochemically related amino acid proline.
authors.affiliation: Division of Immunochemistry, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dröge
authors.forename: K K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Murthy
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stahl-Hennig
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hartung
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Plesker
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rouse
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Peterhans
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kinscherf
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fischbach
authors.forename: H P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Eck
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000097:blood*; D000818:Animals; D016088:Arthritis-Encephalitis Virus, Caprine; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D003545:Cysteine / Q000097:blood; D003553:Cystine / Q000097:blood; D005971:Glutamates / Q000097:blood; D018698:Glutamic Acid; D015511:Goat Diseases / Q000097:blood; D006041:Goats; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000097:blood; D015497:HIV-1; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000097:blood; D006801:Humans; D016180:Lentivirus Infections / Q000097:blood* / Q000662:veterinary; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D002679:Pan troglodytes; D011392:Proline / Q000097:blood; D016097:Simian Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D005971:Glutamates; D018698:Glutamic Acid; D003553:Cystine; D011392:Proline; D003545:Cysteine