Monocyte-derived dendritic cells as a model for the study of HIV-1 infection: Productive infection and phenotypic changes during culture in human serum

Abstract

Dendritic cells (DC) have been implicated in the initial selection for macrophage-tropic HIV-1 during transmission and in the generation of high- level virus replication during interactions with CD4 T cells. The role of DC as viral reservoirs and the extent of productive infection is unclear, but the ability to generate large numbers of DC from blood monocytes has produced a tractable model for study of DC-HIV-1 interactions. When cultured in granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor and IL-4, sorted CD14+ monocytes rapidly lost phagocytic function for both 93 nm and 977 nm latex particles and developed the surface markers and function of DC. After 7 days, when returned to medium cont..