HIV infection of choroid plexus in AIDS and asymptomatic HIV-infected patients suggests that the choroid plexus may be a reservoir of productive infection

Neuroinvasion of Fluorescein-Positive Monocytes in Acute Simian Immunodeficiency Virus Infection

“…CFSE dye-labeled cells had entered into the choroid plexus stroma and crossed the fenestrated microvascular endothelium, which is more permeable to extravasating cells than the tight junctions of the blood-CSF barrier (46). However, this finding may be important, because the choroid plexus is considered a critical route for initial CNS invasion by activated or infected monocytes in HIV infection, both temporally and spatially (9,43). Rare CFSE dye-labeled macrophages were also identified in the perivascular space of the cerebrum in acutely SIV infected animals, indicating that cells had migrated across the BBB.…”

Identification of Shared Populations of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infecting Microglia and Tissue Macrophages outside the Central Nervous System

“…While this overwhelming body of evidence of compartmentalization suggests the existence of adaptive differences involved in infection of the CNS, it has been alternatively hypothesized that differences in the rates of virus turnover in different cell types may lead to the population differences observed between brain and lymph node, given the rapid temporal change in HIV populations over time in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and other lymphoid cell types (45). However, the strict association between proviral load and the detection of replicating virus in the CNS by immunocytochemistry and the likelihood of continuous trafficking of HIV-infected cells through the blood brain barrier and intermingling of HIV variants at this interface (59,83) are inconsistent with the concept that CNS-derived sequences represent an inactive or slower-replicating archival HIV population. Further indirect evidence for a functional difference with lymphoid-and CNS-derived virus variants is provided by the comparison of sequence relationships in the env gene with regions elsewhere in the genome not involved in cellular tropism, such as gag (41,56).…”

Pathogenesis of Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Induced Neurological Disease

“…A recent study using the FIV model demonstrated productive infection of the choroid plexus and of macrophage-enriched choroid plexus cultures (Bragg et al, 2002), suggesting that the choroid plexus may be an important site for the trafficking of lentivirus into the CNS (Bragg et al, 2002). Other studies documented the infectability of choroids plexus cells, in vitro and in vivo (Petito et al, 1999;Harouse et al, 1989). Furthermore, if the CSF is seeded with more virulent X4 virus, direct neurotoxicity may occur if the CSF-brain barrier allows extracellular HIV particles to cross into the brain (Kaul and Lipton, 1999).…”