The rhesus macaque pediatric SIV infection model - a valuable tool in understanding infant HIV-1 pathogenesis and for designing pediatric HIV-1 prevention strategies.
Worldwide, the AIDS pandemic continues almost relentlessly. Women are now representing the fastest growing group of newly infected HIV-1 infected patients. The risk of mother-to-child-transmission (MTCT) of HIV-1 increases proportionally as many of these women are of childbearing age. The screening of pregnant women, the early diagnosis of HIV-1 infection, and the administration of antiretroviral therapy (ART) have helped to reduce MTCT significantly. However, this holds true only for developed countries. In many resource-poor countries, access to ART is limited, and breastfeeding, a major route of HIV-1 transmission, is essential to protect the infant from other infectious diseases preponderant in those geographic regions. HIV-1 infected children, in contrast to adult patients, have higher levels of virus replication that decline only slowly, and a subset progresses to AIDS within the first two years. Thus, it is imperative to understand pediatric HIV-1 pathogenesis to design effective prevention strategies and/or a successful pediatric HIV-1 vaccine. The review summarizes how MTCT of HIV-1 in humans can be modeled in the infant macaque model of SIV infection. Importantly, the infant macaque model of SIV infection provides the opportunity to study early virus-host interactions in multiple anatomic compartments. Furthermore, the review underlines the importance of evaluating SIV/HIV immune responses in the context of the normal developmental changes the immune system undergoes in the newborn. Thus, the pediatric SIV infection model provides a unique resource for preclinical studies of novel intervention therapies and vaccine strategies to stop MTCT of HIV-1.
Abel
Kristina
K
California National Primate Research Center, and Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine, University of California Davis, CA, USA. kabel@ucdavis.edu
D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology* / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018445:Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical / Q000517:prevention & control*; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D016097:Simian Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology* / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission