Perils at mucosal front lines for HIV and SIV and their hosts.
HIV-1 and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), as well as their hosts, face perils at mucosal front lines in early infection. At these sites, 'resting' CD4+ memory T cells fuel infection (because they are hosts for virus), depleting CD4+ memory T cells throughout the lymphoid tissues, particularly in the gut, and eliciting an immunosuppressive regulatory T-cell response that impairs host defence. But HIV-1 and SIV also risk elimination at the earliest stage of infection, at the mucosal point of entry, if founder populations of infected cells do not expand sufficiently to establish a self-propagating infection. Microbicides and vaccines could increase these viral vulnerabilities at mucosal front lines.
Haase
Ashley T
AT
Department of Microbiology, Medical School, University of Minnesota, MMC 196, 420 Delaware Street South East, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA. haase001@umn.edu
D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D006678:HIV / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D018928:Immunity, Mucosal; D016180:Lentivirus Infections / Q000276:immunology* / Q000635:transmission*; D009092:Mucous Membrane / Q000276:immunology* / Q000821:virology; D015302:Simian Immunodeficiency Virus / Q000276:immunology*