Incomplete inhibition of HIV infection results in more HIV infected lymph node cells by reducing cell death
- Africa Health Research Institute, South Africa
- University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- University of Basel, Switzerland
Abstract
HIV has been reported to be cytotoxic in vitro and in lymph node infection models. Using a computational approach, we found that partial inhibition of transmissions of multiple virions per cell could lead to increased numbers of live infected cells. If the number of viral DNA copies remains above one after inhibition, then eliminating the surplus viral copies reduces cell death. Using a cell line, we observed increased numbers of live infected cells when infection was partially inhibited with the antiretroviral efavirenz or neutralizing antibody. We then used efavirenz at concentrations reported in lymph nodes to inhibit lymph node infection by partially resistant HIV mutants. We observed more live infected lymph node cells, but with fewer HIV DNA copies per cell, relative to no drug. Hence, counterintuitively, limited attenuation of HIV transmission per cell may increase live infected cell numbers in environments where the force of infection is high.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Human Frontier Science Program (CDA 00050/2013)
- Alex Sigal
European Research Council (Stg. 260686)
- Richard A Neher
DELTAS Africa Initiative (Graduate Fellowship)
- Isabella Markham Ferreira
National Research Foundation (Graduate Fellowship)
- Laurelle Jackson
National Institutes of Health (R21MH104220)
- Alex Sigal
National Research Foundation (Graduate Fellowship)
- Jessica Hunter
Poliomyelitis Research Foundation (Graduate Fellowship)
- Isabella Markham Ferreira
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: Lymph nodes were obtained from the field of surgery of participants undergoing surgery for diagnostic purposes and/or complications of inflammatory lung disease. Informed consent was obtained from each participant, and the study protocol approved by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Institutional Review Board (approval BE024/09).
Copyright
© 2018, Jackson et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 1,670
- views
-
- 216
- downloads
-
- 13
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Incomplete inhibition of HIV infection results in more HIV infected lymph node cells by reducing cell death
eLife 7:e30134.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.30134
Further reading
-
- Computational and Systems Biology
- Neuroscience
The basolateral amygdala (BLA) is a key site where fear learning takes place through synaptic plasticity. Rodent research shows prominent low theta (~3–6 Hz), high theta (~6–12 Hz), and gamma (>30 Hz) rhythms in the BLA local field potential recordings. However, it is not understood what role these rhythms play in supporting the plasticity. Here, we create a biophysically detailed model of the BLA circuit to show that several classes of interneurons (PV, SOM, and VIP) in the BLA can be critically involved in producing the rhythms; these rhythms promote the formation of a dedicated fear circuit shaped through spike-timing-dependent plasticity. Each class of interneurons is necessary for the plasticity. We find that the low theta rhythm is a biomarker of successful fear conditioning. The model makes use of interneurons commonly found in the cortex and, hence, may apply to a wide variety of associative learning situations.
-
- Cancer Biology
- Computational and Systems Biology
Effects from aging in single cells are heterogenous, whereas at the organ- and tissue-levels aging phenotypes tend to appear as stereotypical changes. The mammary epithelium is a bilayer of two major phenotypically and functionally distinct cell lineages: luminal epithelial and myoepithelial cells. Mammary luminal epithelia exhibit substantial stereotypical changes with age that merit attention because these cells are the putative cells-of-origin for breast cancers. We hypothesize that effects from aging that impinge upon maintenance of lineage fidelity increase susceptibility to cancer initiation. We generated and analyzed transcriptomes from primary luminal epithelial and myoepithelial cells from younger <30 (y)ears old and older >55y women. In addition to age-dependent directional changes in gene expression, we observed increased transcriptional variance with age that contributed to genome-wide loss of lineage fidelity. Age-dependent variant responses were common to both lineages, whereas directional changes were almost exclusively detected in luminal epithelia and involved altered regulation of chromatin and genome organizers such as SATB1. Epithelial expression of gap junction protein GJB6 increased with age, and modulation of GJB6 expression in heterochronous co-cultures revealed that it provided a communication conduit from myoepithelial cells that drove directional change in luminal cells. Age-dependent luminal transcriptomes comprised a prominent signal that could be detected in bulk tissue during aging and transition into cancers. A machine learning classifier based on luminal-specific aging distinguished normal from cancer tissue and was highly predictive of breast cancer subtype. We speculate that luminal epithelia are the ultimate site of integration of the variant responses to aging in their surrounding tissue, and that their emergent phenotype both endows cells with the ability to become cancer-cells-of-origin and represents a biosensor that presages cancer susceptibility.
