Major Depletion of Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells in HIV-2 Infection, an Attenuated Form of HIV Disease

Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC) provide an important link between innate and acquired immunity, mediating their action mainly through IFN-α production. pDC suppress HIV-1 replication, but there is increasing evidence suggesting they may also contribute to the increased levels of cell apoptosis and pan-immune activation associated with disease progression. Although having the same clinical spectrum, HIV-2 infection is characterized by a strikingly lower viremia and a much slower rate of CD4 decline and AIDS progression than HIV-1, irrespective of disease stage. We report here a similar marked reduction in circulating pDC levels in untreated HIV-1 and HIV-2 infections in association with CD4 depletion and T cell activation, in spite of the undetectable viremia found in the majority of HIV-2 patients. Moreover, the same overexpression of CD86 and PD-L1 on circulating pDC was found in both infections irrespective of disease stage or viremia status. Our observation that pDC depletion occurs in HIV-2 infected patients with undetectable viremia indicates that mechanisms other than direct viral infection determine the pDC depletion during persistent infections. However, viremia was associated with an impairment of IFN-α production on a per pDC basis upon TLR9 stimulation. These data support the possibility that diminished function in vitro may relate to prior activation by HIV virions in vivo, in agreement with our finding of higher expression levels of the IFN-α inducible gene, MxA, in HIV-1 than in HIV-2 individuals. Importantly, serum IFN-α levels were not elevated in HIV-2 infected individuals. In conclusion, our data in this unique natural model of “attenuated” HIV immunodeficiency contribute to the understanding of pDC biology in HIV/AIDS pathogenesis, showing that in the absence of detectable viremia a major depletion of circulating pDC in association with a relatively preserved IFN-α production does occur

Casein kinase 2β as a novel enhancer of activin-like receptor-1 signaling

ALK-1 is a transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) superfamily receptor that is predominantly expressed in endothelial cells and is essential for angiogenesis, as demonstrated by the embryonic lethal phentoype when targeted for deletion in mice and its mutation in the human disease hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. Although ALK-1 and the endothelial-specific TGF-β superfamily coreceptor, endoglin, form a heteromeric complex and bind similar TGF-β superfamily ligands, their signaling mechanisms remain poorly characterized. Here we report the identification of CK2β, the regulatory subunit of protein kinase CK2, as a novel enhancer of ALK-1 signaling. The cytoplasmic domain of ALK-1 specifically binds to CK2β in vitro and in vivo. NAAIRS mutagenesis studies define amino acid sequences 181–199 of CK2β and 207–212 of ALK-1 as the interaction domains, respectively. The ALK-1/CK2β interaction specifically enhanced Smad1/5/8 phosphorylation and ALK-1-mediated reporter activation in response to TGF-β1 and BMP-9 treatment. In a reciprocal manner, siRNA-mediated silencing of endogenous CK2β inhibited TGF-β1 and BMP-9-stimulated Smad1/5/8 phosphorylation and ALK-1-mediated reporter activation. Functionally, CK2β enhanced the ability of activated or ligand-stimulated ALK-1 to inhibit endothelial cell migration. Similarly, ALK-1 and CK2β antagonized endothelial tubule formation in Matrigel. These studies support CK2β as an important regulator of ALK-1 signaling and ALK-1-mediated functions in endothelial cells.—Lee, N. Y., Haney, J. C., Sogani, J., Blobe, G. C. Casein kinase 2β as a novel enhancer of activin-like receptor-1 signaling

Potent Intratype Neutralizing Activity Distinguishes Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2 (HIV-2) from HIV-1

HIV-2 has a lower pathogenicity and transmission rate than HIV-1. Neutralizing antibodies could be contributing to these observations. Here we explored side by side the potency and breadth of intratype and intertype neutralizing activity (NAc) in plasma of 20 HIV-1-, 20 HIV-2-, and 11 dually HIV-1/2 (HIV-D)-seropositive individuals from Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. Panels of primary isolates, five HIV-1 and five HIV-2 isolates, were tested in a plaque reduction assay using U87.CD4-CCR5 cells as targets. Intratype NAc in HIV-2 plasma was found to be considerably more potent and also broader than intratype NAc in HIV-1 plasma. This indicates that HIV-2-infected individuals display potent type-specific neutralizing antibodies, whereas such strong type-specific antibodies are absent in HIV-1 infection. Furthermore, the potency of intratype NAc was positively associated with the viral load of HIV-1 but not HIV-2, suggesting that NAc in HIV-1 infection is more antigen stimulation dependent than in HIV-2 infection, where plasma viral loads typically are at least 10-fold lower than in HIV-1 infection. Intertype NAc of both HIV-1 and HIV-2 infections was, instead, of low potency. HIV-D subjects had NAc to HIV-2 with similar high potency as singly HIV-2-infected individuals, whereas neutralization of HIV-1 remained poor, indicating that the difference in NAc between HIV-1 and HIV-2 infections depends on the virus itself. We suggest that immunogenicity and/or antigenicity, meaning the neutralization phenotype, of HIV-2 is distinct from that of HIV-1 and that HIV-2 may display structures that favor triggering of potent neutralizing antibody responses

Effect of differentiating agents (all-trans retinoic acid and phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate) on drug sensitivity of HL60 and NB4 cells in vitro.

In vitro studies have shown that human myeloid leukemia cell lines: HL60 and NB4 can be stimulated to differentiation by various agents, for example, all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether differentiation of HL60 and NB4 leukemia cell lines induced by ATRA and PMA alters their drug sensitivity. The differentiation along the neutrophil lineage (upon stimulation with ATRA) and along the monocyte/macrophage lineage (upon stimulation with PMA) was proved by decreased proliferative potential of cells, changes in their morphology, increased ability for NBT reduction and increased expression of CD11b and CD14 cell surface markers. The effect of drugs: cytosine arabinoside, daunorubicin, mitoxantrone and etoposide was examined by Alamar Blue test (proliferation and survival rates), as well as by evaluation of cell smears stained with Hoechst 33342 (apoptotic index). Differentiation resulted in the change of drug sensitivity in both cell lines: the differentiation along the neutrophil pathway (after stimulation with ATRA) increased sensitivity to cytosine arabinoside and mitoxantrone but decreased sensitivity to etoposide; the differentiation along the monocyte/macrophage pathway (induced by PMA) resulted in the decreased sensitivity of both cell lines to all drugs tested. In conclusion, we have shown that ATRA- and PMA-mediated differentiation of HL60 and NB4 cell lines results in the changes of their drug sensitivity. Our data may provide a contribution to a strategy aimed at a rational combination of differentiating agents and conventional anticancer drugs