Abstract
CD4+ T-cell death is a crucial feature of AIDS pathogenesis, but the mechanisms involved remain unclear. Here, we present in vitro findings that identify a novel process of HIV1 mediated killing of bystander CD4+ T cells, which does not require productive infection of these cells but depends on the presence of neighboring dying cells. X4-tropic HIV1 strains, which use CD4 and CXCR4 as receptors for cell entry, caused death of unstimulated noncycling primary CD4+ T cells only if the viruses were produced by dying, productively infected T cells, but not by living, chronically infected T cells or by living HIV1-transfected HeLa cells. Inducing cell death in HIV1-transfected HeLa cells was sufficient to obtain viruses that caused CD4+ T-cell death. The addition of supernatants from dying control cells, including primary T cells, allowed viruses produced by living HIV1-transfected cells to cause CD4+ T-cell death. CD4+ T-cell killing required HIV1 fusion and/or entry into these cells, but neither HIV1 envelope-mediated CD4 or CXCR4 signaling nor the presence of the HIV1 Nef protein in the viral particles. Supernatants from dying control cells contained CD95 ligand (CD95L), and antibody-mediated neutralization of CD95L prevented these supernatants from complementing HIV1 in inducing CD4+ T-cell death. Our in vitro findings suggest that the very extent of cell death induced in vivo during HIV1 infection by either virus cytopathic effects or immune activation may by itself provide an amplification loop in AIDS pathogenesis. More generally, they provide a paradigm for pathogen-mediated killing processes in which the extent of cell death occurring in the microenvironment might drive the capacity of the pathogen to induce further cell death.
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Abbreviations
- CD95L:
-
CD95 (Fas) ligand
- ΔΨm:
-
mitochondrial transmembrane potential
- Env:
-
envelope protein
- GFP:
-
green fluorescent protein
- HIV:
-
human immunodeficiency virus
- mAb:
-
monoclonal antibody
- MuLV:
-
murine leukemia virus
- NL4-3/env:
-
vector encoding NL4-3 deleted in its env gene
- NL4-3/nef:
-
vector encoding NL4-3 deficient in its nef gene
- NL4-3/MuLV env:
-
NL4-3 viruses pseudotyped with the amphotropic MuLV env gene
- sCD4:
-
human soluble recombinant CD4
- SIV:
-
simian immunodeficiency virus
- srCD95L:
-
soluble recombinant FLAG-tagged CD95L
- TNF:
-
tumor necrosis factor
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Acknowledgements
We thank A Fontana (Department of Internal Medicine, Zurich, Switzerland), A Gervaix (University of Geneva, Switzerland), D Klatzmann (CNRS ERS 107-CERVI, CHU Pitié Salpetrière, Paris, France), N Landau (Aaron Diamond Center, New York, NY, USA), P Schneider (Institute of Biochemistry, Epalinges, Switzerland), O Schwartz (Institut Pasteur, Paris, France), and K Strebel (NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA) for the generous gift of valuable reagents, and F Clavel (INSERM U552, CHU Bichat, Paris, France) for discussion. This work was supported by INSERM, Université Paris 7, Université Paris 7 Valorisation, AP-HP, and grants from ANRS, ECS, FRM, and EFG (to JCA), and doctoral fellowships from ANRS (to JDL), ECS (to FP), and DGA and FRM (to DA).
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Lelièvre, J., Mammano, F., Arnoult, D. et al. A novel mechanism for HIV1-mediated bystander CD4+ T-cell death: neighboring dying cells drive the capacity of HIV1 to kill noncycling primary CD4+ T cells. Cell Death Differ 11, 1017–1027 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cdd.4401441
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cdd.4401441
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