Why AIDS?
The mystery of how HIV attacks the immune system
New research suggests that HIV lowers the number of immune cells by preventing the production of new CD4 cells or by triggering a self-destruct mechanism in these cells.
References:
Clark, D.R. . . . F. Miedema. 1999. T cell renewal impaired in HIV-1 infected individuals. Sixth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. February. Chicago.
Hellerstein, M. . . . and J.M. McCune. 1999. Directly measured kinetics of circulating T lymphocytes in normal and HIV-1-infected humans. Nature Medicine 5(January):83.
Pantaleo, G. 1999. Unraveling the strands of HIV's web. Nature Medicine 5(January):27.
Wang, L. . . . and M.W. Cloyd. 1999. A novel mechanism of CD4 lymphocyte depletion involves effects of HIV on resting lymphocytes: Induction of lymph node homing and apoptosis upon secondary signaling through homing receptors. Journal of Immunology 162(January).
Further Readings:
Ho, D.C. . . . A.S. Perelson, et al. 1995. Rapid turnover of plasma virions and CD4 lymphocytes in HIV-1 infection. Nature 373(Jan. 12):123.
Sources:
Miles W. Cloyd
University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
Departments of Microbiology and Immunology and Pathology
Galveston, TX 77555-1019
Anthony Fauci
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Bethesda, MD 20892
David D. Ho
New York University School of Medicine
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center
455 First Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Joseph M. McCune
University of California, San Francisco
Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology
San Francisco General Hospital
San Francisco, CA 94141-9100
Giuseppe Pantaleo
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV)
Department of Medicine
Laboratory of AIDS Immunopathogenesis
Division of Infectious Diseases
1011 Lausanne
Switzerland
Alan S. Perelson
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Theoretical Division
Los Alamos, NM 87545
From Science News, Vol. 155, No. 13, March 27, 1999, p. 199. Copyright © 1999, Science Service.
