title: Assessment of the range of the HIV-1 infectivity enhancing effect of individual human semen specimen and the range of inhibition by EGCG.
abstract: Recently, it has been shown that human ejaculate enhances human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) infectivity. Enhancement of infectivity is conceived to be mediated by amyloid filaments from peptides that are proteolytically released from prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP), termed Semen-derived Enhancer of Virus Infection (SEVI). The aim of this study was to test the range of HIV-1 infectivity enhancing properties of a large number of individual semen samples (n = 47) in a TZM-bl reporter cell HIV infection system. We find that semen overall increased infectivity to 156% of the control experiment without semen, albeit with great inter- and intraindividual variability (range -53%-363%). Using transmission electron microscopy, we provide evidence for SEVI fibrils in fresh human semen for the first time. Moreover, we confirm that the infectivity enhancing property can be inhibited by the major green tea ingredient epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) at non-toxic concentrations. The median inhibition of infection by treatment with 0.4 mM EGCG was 70.6% (p < 0.0001) in our cohort. Yet, there were substantial variations of inhibition and in a minority of samples, infectivity enhancement was not inhibited by EGCG treatment at all. Thus, topical application of EGCG may be a feasible additional measure to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV. However, the reasons for the variability in the efficacy of the abrogation of semen-mediated enhancement of HIV-1 infectivity and EGCG efficacy have to be elucidated before therapeutic trials can be conducted.
authors.affiliation: Infectious Diseases Unit, I. Department of Internal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.|Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hartjen
authors.affiliation: Infectious Diseases Unit, I. Department of Internal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.|Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Frerk
authors.affiliation: Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Ilona
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hauber
authors.affiliation: Infectious Diseases Unit, I. Department of Internal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.|Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Verena
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Matzat
authors.affiliation: Infectious Diseases Unit, I. Department of Internal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.|Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Adriana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thomssen
authors.affiliation: Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Holstermann
authors.affiliation: Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Heinrich
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hohenberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Andrology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schulze
authors.affiliation: Infectious Diseases Unit, I. Department of Internal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.|Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schulze Zur Wiesch
authors.affiliation: Infectious Diseases Unit, I. Department of Internal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.|Heinrich Pette Institute - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI), Martinistrasse 52, 20251 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van Lunzen