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News in brief

Thornsten Mempel (Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases, MA, USA) recently led a project that has visualised the mechanisms of behaviour of HIV-infected T cells in the lymph node of a live animal model, a ‘humanized’ murine model of HIV infection. Describing the actions of the infected T cells Mempel explained that, “Infected T cells continue doing what they usually do, migrating within and between tissues such as lymph modes, and in doing so they carry HIV to remote locations that free virus could not reach as easily.” Mempel also highlighted the therapeutic potential available, “There are drugs that can manipulate the migration of T cells that potentially could be used to help control the spread of virus within a patient.” A long-held assumption is that it is the so-called ‘free virus’ particles, assembled within and released from infected T cells, that travel via diffusion through tissue fluids to reach new cells to infect. However more recent studies have demonstrated that infected T cells can form virological synapses, whereby the virus can be directly passed from one T cell to another. The experimental project utilized the humanized bone marrow, liver and thymus mouse model, “This approach provides a new vantage point to investigate previously unexplored aspects of HIV pathogenesis,” Mempel explained. This model is set up to resemble the human immune system with a HIV infection. The murine model was confirmed to show normal entry and migration of T cells in the mouse lymph nodes (common sites of HIV replication). Researchers were able to track the movement of the infected T cells with the use of green fluorescent protein via the method of intravital microscopy, and were able to see that within 2 days, T cells infected with HIV underwent migration but remained close to the lymph nodes at the site of the injection.