AIDSWEEKLY Plus; December 9, 2002
Michael Greer, Senior Medical Writer

"In lymphoid tissues coinfected with Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) and HIV-1, increased viral replication has been observed," explained Hollie Hale-Donze and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, George Washington University in Washington, DC, and Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.

MAC recruits healthy monocytes to the area of infection to serve as fresh HIV hosts, Hale-Donze and coauthors found.

Cultured monocyte-derived macrophages infected with MAC recruited up to three times as many monocytes as uninfected cells, they said. Treatment with mycobacterial proteins had a similar effect although HIV infection had no impact on macrophage recruitment ability.

M. avium infection caused macrophages to upregulate several chemotactic proteins, according to the report. These chemokines included macrophage-inflammatory protein (MIP)-1alpha, MIP-1beta, and interleukin-8.

Antioxidant treatment inhibited nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB activity and subsequent expression of chemotactic mediators, significantly reducing the recruitment capacity of MAC-infected cells (Mycobacterium avium complex promotes recruitment of monocyte hosts for HIV-1 and bacteria. J Immunol 2002 Oct 1;169(7):3854-62.

"These data demonstrate that MAC induces macrophage production of multiple chemotactic factors via NF-kappaB to promote monocyte migration to sites of MAC infection," Hale-Donze and colleagues concluded. "In vivo, opportunistic infection may act as a recruitment mechanism in which newly arrived monocytes serve as naive hosts for both MAC and HIV-1, thus perpetuating both infections."

The corresponding author for this report is Sharon M. Wahl, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, Oral Infection and Immunology Branch, National Institutes of Health, 30 Convent Dr., MSC 4352, Bldg. 30-332, Bethesda, MD 20892 USA. E-mail: smwahl@yoda.nidr.nih.gov.

Key points reported in this study include:

• Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) helps recruit fresh monocyte hosts for HIV

• MAC-infected macrophages upregulated a number of chemotactic proteins

• Antioxidants blocked this heightened chemokine activity

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

Reference

Hale-Donze H, Greenwell-Wild T, Mizel D, et al., "Mycobacterium avium complex promotes recruitment of monocyte hosts for HIV-1 and bacteria", J Immunol 2002 Oct 1;169(7):3854-62.

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