アクティブボード・２０１５年１２月
　　　　　・・・・・２０１５年１２月　２日更新・・・・・
研究発表を行った学会；
・第63回日本ウイルス学会学術集会
　２０１５年１１月２２日〜２４日（福岡市）
タイトル；Persistent HIV-1 infection of fibrocytes.
発表者；Hesham Nasser　氏
　　　（熊本大学　エイズ学研究センター　鈴プロジェクト研究室）
要旨；
Fibroblastic leukocytes, fibrocytes, are unique hematopoietic cells with features of both macrophages and fibroblasts. It has been shown that fibrocytes contribute to the remodeling or fibrosis of various injured tissues. However, their role in viral infection including HIV-1 infection is not fully understood.
In this study, we provide evidence that differentiated fibrocytes are phenotypically distinguishable from macrophages but can be infected with HiV-1. Importantly, fibrocytes exhibited persistently infected cell-like phenotypes, the degree of which was more apparent than macrophages: infected fibrocytes produced replication-competent HIV-1, but expressed HIV-1 mRNA at lower levels and strongly resisted HIV-1-induced cell death, which enabled them to support an extremely long-term HIV-1 production at low but steady levels.
More importantly, fibrocytes were susceptible to HIV-1 infection regardless of their differentiation state, in contrast to the fact that monocytes become susceptible to HIV-1 after their differentiation into macrophages. Thus, the fibrocytes are the previously unreported HIV-1 host cells, and our results suggest the importance of considering fibrocytes as one of long-lived persistently infected cells for curing HIV-1.