title: Gamma interferon primes productive human immunodeficiency virus infection in astrocytes.
abstract: Considerable controversy exists over whether astrocytes can support human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. We evaluated the impact of three cytokines critical to the development of HIV neuropathogenesis, gamma interferon (IFN-gamma), granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, and tumor necrosis factor alpha, on priming astrocytes for HIV infection. We demonstrate that IFN-gamma was the most potent in its ability to facilitate substantial productive HIV infection of an astroglioma cell line (U87MG) and human fetal astrocytes (HFA). The mechanism of IFN-gamma-mediated priming of HIV in HFA is unlikely to be at the level of up-regulation of receptors and coreceptors relevant to HIV entry. These data demonstrate that cytokine priming can alter HIV replication in astrocytes.
authors.affiliation: Rush University Medical Center, Department of Immunology/Microbiology, 1735 W. Harrison Street, 614 Cohn, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Carroll-Anzinger
authors.forename: Lena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Al-Harthi
mesh_terms: D001253:Astrocytes / Q000502:physiology / Q000821:virology*; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000473:pathology*; D015497:HIV-1; D006801:Humans; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D007371:Interferon-gamma