Important note: Information in this article was accurate in April 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; April 29, 2002
Michael Greer, Senior Medical Writer
"Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) may interact during transplacental transmission of HIV-1," according to Eszter Csoma and colleagues at the University of Debrecen in Debrecen, Hungary, and the Danish Cancer Society in Aarhus, Denmark.
Placental syncytiotrophoblast cells infected with both viruses were far more conducive to HIV transmission than singly infected cells, Csoma and coauthors found.
Infection with HIV alone failed to trigger viral protein expression on cultured placental cells, the researchers said. However, coinfection of these cells with both HHV-6 variant A (HHV-6A) and HIV led to the release of infectious HIV particles.
Moreover, immediate-early (IE) HHV-6A gene products activated latent HIV in coinfected cells, study data showed. In particular, a pair of open reading frames found in the IE-A region of the HHV-6A genome synergistically stimulated HIV replication.
Coinfection of placental cells had no effect on HHV-6A virulence (Human herpesvirus 6 variant a infects human term syncytiotrophoblasts in vitro and induces replication of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in dually infected cells, J Med Virol 2002 May;67(1):67-87.
"The data suggest that in vivo double infection of syncytiotrophoblast cells with HHV-6A and HIV-1 could contribute to the transplacental transmission of HIV-1 but not HHV-6A," Csoma and colleagues concluded.
The corresponding author for this report is Ferenc D. Toth, Institute of Microbiology, Medical and Health Science Center, University of Debrecen, Nagyerdei krt. 98., 4012 Debrecen, Hungary. E-mail: mikro@jaguar.dotehu.
Key points reported in this study include:
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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