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Blood, 1 May 2008, Vol. 111, No. 9, pp. 4660-4663. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on February 22, 2008; DOI 10.1182/blood-2007-12-130070.
IMMUNOBIOLOGY Efficient HIV-1 transmission from macrophages to T cells across transient virological synapses1 Sir William Dunn School of Pathology and 2 Division of Structural Biology, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom Macrophages are reservoirs of HIV-1 infection, proposed to transmit virus to CD4+ T cells, the primary target of the virus. Here we report that human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) rapidly spread HIV-1 to autologous CD4+ T cells resulting in productive infection. Transmission takes place across transient adhesive contacts between T cells and MDMs, which have the features of a virological synapse including copolarization of CD4 on the T cell with HIV-1 Gag and Env on the macrophage. We propose that an infected MDM can infect at least one T cell every 6 hours. Since HIV-1–infected macrophages can survive for many weeks, these results highlight the central role played by macrophages in HIV-1 infection and pathogenesis.
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