title: Cytopathology or immunopathology? The puzzle of cytomegalovirus pneumonitis revisited.
abstract: Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain why cytomegalovirus pneumonitis (CMV-P) is frequent and severe in bone marrow transplant patients while remaining rare and mild in HIV infected patients. One hypothesis suggests that CMV-P is an immunopathological condition that is common in bone marrow transplantation (BMT) under the effects of an abnormally regenerating immune system that reacts against CMV infected lung tissue. Such a hypothesis implicates CD4 T lymphocytes as one of the critical cell populations involved in immunopathology and also suggests that this process would be aborted by CD4 T cell deficiency in HIV infection. However, studies correlating the onset of CMV-P with lymphocyte reconstitution following BMT have revealed that CD4 cells are present at very low frequencies in the blood during the early period after transplantation when most cases of CMV-P occur. Furthermore, studies directly investigating bronchoalveolar lavage cell types during episodes of CMV-P in BMT patients have also failed to demonstrate significant CD4 involvement and, instead, have emphasized a predominance of natural killer (NK) cells and CD8 cells. These findings serve as the basis for questioning the validity of a CD4-driven immunopathological model of CMV-P in BMT. On the other hand, a variety of experimental and clinical observations support the protective role of CMV-specific CD3+ CD8 T lymphocytes against CMV in both immunocompetent individuals and BMT patients. In a murine BMT model, adoptive transfer of syngeneic BM cells was associated with massive increases in lung CD8 cells which resulted in the resolution rather than the exacerbation of existing CMV-P. In the light of these findings a more plausible hypothesis for CMV-P in BMT is that during the early period after transplantation adequate protective CD8 responses are absent and an uncontrolled CMV proliferation is allowed to develop. Once a critical viral load is reached a cytokine 'storm' may be triggered in the lung tissue that aggravates direct CMV-associated cytopathic effects. Likely candidates for this process would include the release of tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) from alveolar macrophages stimulated by interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) released from NK cells that are reconstituted early after BMT.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, Royal Free and University College Hospital Medical School, London, UK.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Barry
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Janossy
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology; D003586:Cytomegalovirus Infections / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D017563:Lung Diseases, Interstitial / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology