The gastrointestinal tract is critical to the pathogenesis of acute HIV-1 infection.
It has become evident that the gastrointestinal tract is preferentially and profoundly depleted of CD4+ T cells during acute HIV-1 infection. The enhanced susceptibility of gastrointestinal lymphoid tissue to HIV-1 is in part due to the large complement of CCR5+ memory CD4+ T cells resident at this site. Here we summarize the recent findings demonstrating that the gastrointestinal tract plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of acute HIV-1 and simian immunodeficiency virus infections. Ongoing work in this field is likely to have a significant effect on HIV research in the near future.
Mehandru
Saurabh
S
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10016, USA. s.mehandr@adarc.org
Tenner-Racz
Klara
K
Racz
Paul
P
Markowitz
Martin
M
D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000209:etiology*; D000208:Acute Disease; D018791:CD4 Lymphocyte Count; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000276:immunology*; D015497:HIV-1; D006801:Humans; D019713:Receptors, CCR5 / Q000032:analysis
D019713:Receptors, CCR5