scholarly journals HIV Reactivation in Latently Infected Cells with Virological Synapse-Like Cell Contact

Viruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 417
Author(s):  
Toshiki Okutomi ◽  
Satoko Minakawa ◽  
Riku Hirota ◽  
Koko Katagiri ◽  
Yuko Morikawa

HIV reactivation from latency is induced by cytokines but also by cell contact with other cells. To better understand this, J1.1 cells, a latent HIV-1-infected Jurkat derivative, were cocultured with its parental Jurkat. J1.1 cells became p17MA-positive and produced a high level of HIV p24CA antigen, only when they were cocultured with stimulated Jurkat with cell-to-cell contact. In contrast, very little p24CA was produced when they were cocultured without cell contact. Similar results were obtained when latent ACH-2 and its parental A3.01 cells were cocultured. Confocal microscopy revealed that not only HIV-1 p17MA and gp120Env but also LFA-1, CD81, CD59, and TCR CD3 accumulated at the cell contact site, suggesting formation of the virological synapse-like structure. LFA-1–ICAM-1 interaction was involved in the cell-to-cell contact. When J1.1 was cocultured with TCR-deficient Jurkat, the p17MA-positive rate was significantly lower, although the cell-to-cell contact was not impaired. Quantitative proteomics identified 54 membrane molecules, one of which was MHC class I, that accumulated at the cell contact site. Reactivation from latency was also influenced by the presence of stromal cells. Our study indicated that latent HIV-1 in J1.1/ACH-2 cells was efficiently reactivated by cell-to-cell contact with stimulated parental cells, accompanying the virological synapse-like structure.

Oncotarget ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (55) ◽  
pp. 94104-94116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanyu Pan ◽  
Panpan Lu ◽  
Yinzhong Shen ◽  
Yanan Wang ◽  
Zhengtao Jiang ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Chen-liang Zhou ◽  
Yi-fan Huang ◽  
Yi-bin Li ◽  
Tai-zhen Liang ◽  
Teng-yi Zheng ◽  
...  

Eliminating the latent HIV reservoir remains a difficult problem for creating an HIV functional cure or achieving remission. The “block-and-lock” strategy aims to steadily suppress transcription of the viral reservoir and lock the HIV promoter in deep latency using latency-promoting agents (LPAs). However, to date, most of the investigated LPA candidates are not available for clinical trials, and some of them exhibit immune-related adverse reactions. The discovery and development of new, active, and safe LPA candidates for an HIV cure are necessary to eliminate residual HIV-1 viremia through the “block-and-lock” strategy. In this study, we demonstrated that a new small-molecule compound, Q308, silenced the HIV-1 provirus by inhibiting Tat-mediated gene transcription and selectively downregulating the expression levels of the facilitated chromatin transcription (FACT) complex. Strikingly, Q308 induced the preferential apoptosis in HIV-1 latently infected cells, indicating that Q308 may reduce the size of the viral reservoir and thus further prevent viral rebound. These findings highlight that Q308 is a novel and safe anti-HIV-1 inhibitor candidate for a functional cure.


2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (11) ◽  
pp. 7697-7704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanxian Zeng ◽  
Sijie Liu ◽  
Pengfei Wang ◽  
Xiying Qu ◽  
Haiyan Ji ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hoang Nguyen ◽  
Hannah Wilson ◽  
Sahana Jayakumar ◽  
Viraj Kulkarni ◽  
Smita Kulkarni

Recently discovered Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas13 proteins are programmable RNA-guided ribonucleases that target single-stranded RNA (ssRNA). CRISPR/Cas13 mediated RNA targeting has emerged as a powerful tool for detecting and eliminating RNA viruses. Here, we demonstrate the effectiveness of CRISPR/Cas13d to inhibit HIV-1 replication. We designed guide RNAs (gRNAs) targeting highly conserved regions of HIV-1. RfxCas13d (CasRx) in combination with HIV-specific gRNAs efficiently inhibited HIV-1 replication in cell line models. Furthermore, simultaneous targeting of four distinct sites in the HIV-1 transcript resulted in robust inhibition of HIV-1 replication. We also show the effective HIV-1 inhibition in primary CD4+ T-cells and suppression of HIV-1 reactivated from latently infected cells using the CRISPR/Cas13d system. Our study demonstrates the utility of the CRISPR/Cas13d nuclease system to target acute and latent HIV infection and provides an alternative treatment modality against HIV.


mBio ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinayaka R. Prasad ◽  
Ganjam V. Kalpana

ABSTRACT The indomitable aspect of HIV-1 infection is not that HIV-1 proviral DNA is integrated into host DNA but that it can also turn itself off, remaining invisible to drug or immune surveillance. Thus, the goals of eradication include ways to precisely excise HIV-1 DNA or wake up the silent HIV-1 provirus and eliminate the infected cells thus identified. Methods to identify and fish out the latently infected cells or to delineate their characteristics are being rapidly developed. In 2016, Baxter et al. (A. E. Baxter, J. Niessl, R. Fromentin, J. Richard, F. Porichis, R. Charlebois, M. Massanella, N. Brassard, N. Alsahafi, G. G. Delgado, J. P. Routy, B. D. Walker, A. Finzi, N. Chomont, and D. E. Kaufmann, Cell Host Microbe 20:368–380, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2016.07.015 ) and Martrus et al. (G. Martrus, A. Niehrs, R. Cornelis, A. Rechtien, W. García-Beltran, M. Lütgehetmann, C. Hoffmann, and M. Altfeld, J Virol 90:9018–9028, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.01448-16 ) reported using the fluorescence in situ hybridization-flow cytometry technique to identify and quantify cells expressing HIV-1 RNA and Gag protein, as well as bearing unique cell surface markers. In a recent article in mBio, Grau-Expósito et al. (J. Grau-Expósito, C. Serra-Peinado, L. Miguel, J. Navarro, A. Curran, J. Burgos, I. Ocaña, E. Ribera, A. Torrella, B. Planas, R. Badía, J. Castellví, V. Falcó, M. Crespo, and M. J. Buzon, mBio 8:e00876-17, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00876-17 !) reported a similar method that they claim to be more sensitive. With these methods, researchers are one step closer to measuring latent reservoirs and eliminating critical barriers to HIV eradication.


2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
George N. Llewellyn ◽  
Eduardo Seclén ◽  
Stephen Wietgrefe ◽  
Siyu Liu ◽  
Morgan Chateau ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTCombination anti-retroviral drug therapy (ART) potently suppresses HIV-1 replication but does not result in virus eradication or a cure. A major contributing factor is the long-term persistence of a reservoir of latently infected cells. To study this reservoir, we established a humanized mouse model of HIV-1 infection and ART suppression based on an oral ART regimen. Similar to humans, HIV-1 levels in the blood of ART-treated animals were frequently suppressed below the limits of detection. However, the limited timeframe of the mouse model and the small volume of available samples makes it a challenging model with which to achieve full viral suppression and to investigate the latent reservoir. We therefore used anex vivolatency reactivation assay that allows a semiquantitative measure of the latent reservoir that establishes in individual animals, regardless of whether they are treated with ART. Using this assay, we found that latently infected human CD4 T cells can be readily detected in mouse lymphoid tissues and that latent HIV-1 was enriched in populations expressing markers of T cell exhaustion, PD-1 and TIGIT. In addition, we were able to use theex vivolatency reactivation assay to demonstrate that HIV-specific TALENs can reduce the fraction of reactivatable virus in the latently infected cell population that establishesin vivo, supporting the use of targeted nuclease-based approaches for an HIV-1 cure.IMPORTANCEHIV-1 can establish latent infections that are not cleared by current antiretroviral drugs or the body’s immune responses and therefore represent a major barrier to curing HIV-infected individuals. However, the lack of expression of viral antigens on latently infected cells makes them difficult to identify or study. Here, we describe a humanized mouse model that can be used to detect latent but reactivatable HIV-1 in both untreated mice and those on ART and therefore provides a simple system with which to study the latent HIV-1 reservoir and the impact of interventions aimed at reducing it.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iart Luca Shytaj ◽  
Francesco Andrea Procopio ◽  
Mohammad Tarek ◽  
Irene Carlon-Andres ◽  
Hsin-Yao Tang ◽  
...  

AbstractHIV-1 infects lymphoid and myeloid cells, which can harbor a latent proviral reservoir responsible for maintaining lifelong infection. Glycolytic metabolism has been identified as a determinant of susceptibility to HIV-1 infection, but its role in the development and maintenance of HIV-1 latency has not been elucidated. By combining transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic analysis, we here show that transition to latent HIV-1 infection downregulates glycolysis, while viral reactivation by conventional stimuli reverts this effect. Decreased glycolytic output in latently infected cells is associated with downregulation of NAD+/NADH. Consequently, infected cells rely on the parallel pentose phosphate pathway and its main product, the antioxidant NADPH, fueling antioxidant pathways maintaining HIV-1 latency. Of note, blocking NADPH downstream effectors, thioredoxin and glutathione, favors HIV-1 reactivation from latency in lymphoid and myeloid cellular models. This provides a “shock and kill effect” decreasing proviral DNA in cells from people-living-with-HIV/AIDS. Overall, our data show that downmodulation of glycolysis is a metabolic signature of HIV-1 latency that can be exploited to target latently infected cells with eradication strategies.


Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1850
Author(s):  
Hoang Nguyen ◽  
Hannah Wilson ◽  
Sahana Jayakumar ◽  
Viraj Kulkarni ◽  
Smita Kulkarni

Recently discovered Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas13 proteins are programmable RNA-guided ribonucleases that target single-stranded RNA (ssRNA). CRISPR/Cas13-mediated RNA targeting has emerged as a powerful tool for detecting and eliminating RNA viruses. Here, we demonstrate the effectiveness of CRISPR/Cas13d to inhibit HIV-1 replication. We designed guide RNAs (gRNAs) targeting highly conserved regions of HIV-1. RfxCas13d (CasRx) in combination with HIV-specific gRNAs efficiently inhibited HIV-1 replication in cell line models. Furthermore, simultaneous targeting of four distinct, non-overlapping sites in the HIV-1 transcript resulted in robust inhibition of HIV-1 replication. We also show the effective HIV-1 inhibition in primary CD4+ T-cells and suppression of HIV-1 reactivated from latently infected cells using the CRISPR/Cas13d system. Our study demonstrates the utility of the CRISPR/Cas13d nuclease system to target acute and latent HIV infection and provides an alternative treatment modality against HIV.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kien Nguyen ◽  
Jonathan Karn ◽  
Won Kyung ◽  
Curtis Dobrowolski ◽  
Meenakshi Shukla

One strategy for a functional cure of HIV-1 is block and lock, which seeks to permanently suppress the rebound of quiescent HIV-1 by epigenetic silencing. For the HIV LTR, both histone 3 lysine 27 tri-methylation (H3K27me3) and DNA methylation are associated with viral suppression, while H3K4 tri-methylation (H3K4me3) is correlated with viral expression. However, H3K27me3 is readily reversed upon activation of T-cells through the T-cell receptor. To suppress latent HIV-1 in a stable fashion, we depleted the expression or inhibited the activity of UTX/KDM6A, the major H3K27 demethylase, and investigated its impact on latent HIV-1 reactivation in T cells. Inhibition of UTX dramatically enhanced H3K27me3 levels at the HIV LTR and were associated with increased DNA methylation. In latently infected cells from patients, GSK-J4, which is a potent dual inhibitor of the H3K27me3/me2-demethylases JMJD3/KDM6B and UTX/KDM6A, effectively suppressed the reactivation of latent HIV-1 and induced DNA methylation at specific sites in the 5' LTR of latent HIV-1 by the enhanced recruitment of DNMT3A to HIV-1. Nonetheless, suppression of HIV-1 through epigenetic silencing required the continued treatment with GSK-J4 and was rapidly reversed after removal of the drug. Thus, epigenetic silencing by itself appears to be insufficient to permanently silence HIV-1 proviral transcription.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isobel Okoye ◽  
Lai Xu ◽  
Olaide Oyegbami ◽  
Shima Shahbaz ◽  
Desmond Pink ◽  
...  

HIV latency is a challenge to the success of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Hence patients may benefit from interventions that efficiently reactivate the latent virus to be eliminated by ARTs. Here we show that plasma extracellular vesicles (pEVs) can enhance HIV infection of activated CD4+ T cells and reactivate the virus in latently infected J-Lat 10.6 cells. Evaluation of the extravesicular miRNA cargo by a PCR array revealed that pEVs from HIV patients express miR-139-5p. Furthermore, we found that increased levels of miR-139-5p in J-Lat 10.6 cells incubated with pEVs corresponded with reduced expression of the transcription factor, FOXO1. pEV treatment also corresponded with increased miR-139-5p expression in stimulated PD1+ Jurkat cells, but with concomitant upregulation of FOXO1, Fos, Jun, PD-1 and PD-L1. However, J-Lat 10.6 cells incubated with miR-139-5p inhibitor-transfected pEVs from HIV ART-naïve and on-ART patients expressed reduced levels of miR-139-5p than cells treated with pEVs from healthy controls (HC). Collectively, our results indicate that pEV miR-139-5p belongs to a network of miRNAs that can promote cell activation, including latent HIV-infected cells by regulating the expression of FOXO1 and the PD1/PD-L1 promoters, Fos and Jun.


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