{"id":19761,"date":"2012-08-01T12:03:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T12:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/?p=19761"},"modified":"2012-11-21T13:06:17","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T13:06:17","slug":"role-of-cell-to-cell-transmission-in-sustaining-the-hiv-reservoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/19761","title":{"rendered":"Role of cell-to-cell transmission in sustaining the HIV reservoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Jefferys, TAG<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new study by Marc Permanyer and colleagues, published online recently by the Journal of Virology, disputes the interpretation of results suggesting that cell-to-cell transmission facilitates ongoing viral replication in the face of antiretroviral therapy. [1]<\/p>\n

The earlier research, from the laboratory of David Baltimore, was published as a high profile paper in August 2011 in the journal Nature. This paper proposed that cell-to-cell transmission might represent a mechanism that sustains the reservoir of HIV-infected cells in people on long-term ART. [2]<\/p>\n

The essence of the disagreement relates to the method used to measure cell-to-cell HIV spread in a laboratory culture system. The original study used a modified HIV that expresses a green fluorescent protein (GFP) tag, and assessed whether the tag became detectable in cells as a surrogate for viral replication.<\/p>\n

Permanyer’s work shows that transfer of HIV from cell-to-cell, as measured by GFP, does not necessarily equate to continuation of the viral replication cycle. In the presence of ART, the transfer is shown to be abortive because replication is blocked.<\/p>\n

The researchers conclude: “data on cell-to-cell spread should be taken with caution as it is crucial to correctly distinguish and measure abortive virus transfer or subrogate markers of infection (LTR-driven GFP) from effective viral replication.”<\/p>\n

Source:<\/p>\n

TAG Basic Science Web Blog (29 Jun 2012).<\/p>\n

http:\/\/tagbasicscienceproject.typepad.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

References:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Baltimore J et al. Nature, August 2011.<\/li>\n
  2. Permanyer M et al. Antiretroviral agents effectively block HIV replication after cell to cell transfer. J Virol. 2012 Jun 13. [Epub ahead of print]
    \n    http:\/\/jvi.asm.org\/content\/early\/2012\/06\/08\/JVI.01044-12.abstract<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Richard Jefferys, TAG A new study by Marc Permanyer and colleagues, published online recently by the Journal of Virology, disputes the interpretation of results suggesting that cell-to-cell transmission facilitates ongoing viral replication in the face of antiretroviral therapy. [1] The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basic-science-and-immunology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}