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Significant Virus Replication in Langerhans Cells following Application of HIV to Abraded Skin: Relevance to Occupational Transmission of HIV¹

Tatsuyoshi Kawamura^*, Yoshio Koyanagi, Yuumi Nakamura^*, Youichi Ogawa^*, Atsuya Yamashita, Taku Iwamoto^*, Masahiko Ito, Andrew Blauvelt^,¶ and Shinji Shimada^2,*

^* Departments of Dermatology and Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Yamanashi, Yamanashi, Japan; Laboratory of Viral Pathogenesis, Research Center for AIDS, Institute for Virus Research, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan; Departments of Dermatology and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR 97239; and ^¶ Dermatology Service, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Portland, OR 97239

The cellular events that occur following occupational percutaneous exposure to HIV have not been defined. In this study, we studied relevant host cellular and molecular targets used for acquisition of HIV infection using split-thickness human skin explants. Blockade of CD4 or CCR5 before R5 HIV application to the epithelial surface of skin explants completely blocked subsequent HIV transmission from skin emigrants to allogeneic T cells, whereas preincubation with C-type lectin receptor inhibitors did not. Immunomagnetic bead depletion studies demonstrated that epithelial Langerhans cells (LC) accounted for >95% of HIV dissemination. When skin explants were exposed to HIV variants engineered to express GFP during productive infection, GFP⁺ T cells were found adjacent to GFP⁺ LC. In three distinct dendritic cell (DC) subsets identified among skin emigrants (CD1a⁺langerin⁺DC-specific intercellular adhesion molecule grabbing non-integrin (SIGN)^– LC, CD1a⁺langerin^–DC-SIGN^– dermal DC, and CD1a^–langerin^–DC-SIGN⁺ dermal macrophages), HIV infection was detected only in LC. These results suggest that productive HIV infection of LC plays a critical role in virus dissemination from epithelium to cells located within subepithelial tissue. Thus, initiation of antiretroviral drugs soon after percutaneous HIV exposure may not prevent infection of LC, which is likely to occur rapidly, but may prevent or limit subsequent LC-mediated infection of T cells.

The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

¹ This work was supported in part by a grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Japanese government.

² Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Shinji Shimada, 1110 Shimokato, Chuo, Yamanashi 409-3898, Japan. E-mail address: sshimada{at}yamanashi.ac.jp

³ Abbreviations used in this paper: HCP, health-care personnel; CLR, C-type lectin receptor; DC, dendritic cell; EGFP, enhanced GFP; IRES, internal ribosome entry site; LC, Langerhans cell; MDDC, monocyte-derived DC; PEP, postexposure prophylaxis; PSC-RANTES, Na-nonanoyl[thioproline2, cyclohexylglycine3]RANTES; DC-SIGN, DC-specific intercellular adhesion molecule grabbing non-integrin; TCID₅₀, 50% tissue culture infecting dose.