Important note: Information in this article was accurate in October 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, October 8, 2001
Staff Medical Writers
NewsRx - Human Langerhans cells express a functional HIV coreceptor, a finding that may help clarify the mechanisms of HIV transmission, according to researchers in France.
"HIV can cross the intact epithelium of genital mucosae via Langerhans cells," explained Prof. Christian Genin and colleagues at the University of Saint-Etienne in Lyon. "The presence of CXCR4 on the surface of cultured but not freshly isolated Langerhans cells has been described."
Genin and research team showed that fresh Langerhans cells did, in fact, express this coreceptor and that disruption of its function may help prevent infection.
Freshly isolated and purified Langerhans cells taken from human skin expressed CXCR4, used for cell entry by T cell-tropic or X4 strains of HIV, they said. The proportion of CXCR4+ cells increased after maturation in culture, and the addition of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) augmented the expression of this coreceptor.
Cultures containing cells from the human lymphoma cell line SupT1 and Langerhans cells infected with an X4 HIV strain soon displayed a marked rise in p24 protein levels, a marker for HIV activity. Syncytia formation was also observed in these cultures, study data showed.
Treating Langerhans cells with stromal cell-derived factor 1 (alpha) (SDF-1-(alpha)), CXCR4's natural ligand, or the antiviral drug AZT protected those cells from HIV infection ("Functional HIV CXCR4 coreceptor on human epithelial Langerhans cells and infection by HIV strain X4," J Leukoc Biol 2001 Aug;70(2):313-21.
"These data demonstrated that CXCR4 is present on the surface of Langerhans cells freshly isolated from human skin epidermis and that this expression is functional," Genin and colleagues concluded.
The corresponding author for this report is Prof. Christian Genin, Groupe Immunite des Muqueuses et Agents Pathogenes, Faculte de Medecine, 15 rue Ambroise Pare, 42023 Saint-Etienne Cedex 2, France. E-mail: geninc@univ-st-etienne.fr.
Key points reported in this study include:
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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