Open AccessGamma Interferon Primes Productive Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection in Astrocytes
Author(s) -
Deborah Carroll-Anzinger,
Lena AlHarthi
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.617
H-Index - 292
eISSN - 1070-6321
pISSN - 0022-538X
DOI - 10.1128/jvi.80.1.541-544.2006
Subject(s) - biology , priming (agriculture) , interferon gamma , cytokine , immunology , virology , interferon , microglia , virus , tumor necrosis factor alpha , samhd1 , macrophage , inflammation , rna , in vitro , genetics , reverse transcriptase , botany , germination , gene
Considerable controversy exists over whether astrocytes can support human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. We evaluated the impact of three cytokines critical to the development of HIV neuropathogenesis, gamma interferon (IFN-γ), granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, and tumor necrosis factor alpha, on priming astrocytes for HIV infection. We demonstrate that IFN-γ was the most potent in its ability to facilitate substantial productive HIV infection of an astroglioma cell line (U87MG) and human fetal astrocytes (HFA). The mechanism of IFN-γ-mediated priming of HIV in HFA is unlikely to be at the level of up-regulation of receptors and coreceptors relevant to HIV entry. These data demonstrate that cytokine priming can alter HIV replication in astrocytes.