Research
Dendritic cell-mediated HIV-1 transmission to T cells of LAD-1 patients is impaired due to the defect in LFA-1
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* Corresponding author: Esther C de Jong e.c.dejong@amc.uva.nl
1 Department of Human Retrovirology, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2 Department of Cell Biology and Histology, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
3 Division of Pediatric Hematology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Emma Children's Hospital, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
4 Present address: The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Retrovirology 2006, 3:75 doi:10.1186/1742-4690-3-75
Published: 1 November 2006Abstract
Background
Dendritic cells (DC) have been proposed to mediate sexual HIV-1 transmission by capturing the virus in the mucosa and subsequently presenting it to CD4+ T cells. We have demonstrated before that DC subsets expressing higher levels of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) are better HIV-1 transmitters. ICAM-1 binds leukocyte function-associated molecule-1 (LFA-1) on T cells, an integrin responsible for adhesion and signaling at the immunological synapse. To corroborate the importance of the ICAM-1— LFA-1 interaction, we performed transmission experiments to LFA-1 negative leukocytes from Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency type 1 (LAD-1) patients.
Results
We clearly show that DC-mediated HIV-1 transmission to LAD-1 T cells is impaired in comparison to healthy controls. Furthermore, HIV-1 transmission to T cells from a unique LAD-1 patient with a well characterized LFA-1 activation defect was impaired as well, demonstrating that activation of LFA-1 is crucial for efficient transmission. Decreased cell adhesion between DC and LAD-1 T cells could also be illustrated by significantly smaller DC-T cell clusters after HIV-1 transmission.
Conclusion
By making use of LFA-1 defect cells from unique patients, this study provides more insight into the mechanism of HIV-1 transmission by DC. This may offer new treatment options to reduce sexual transmission of HIV-1.