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J. Exp. Med.,
Volume 187, Number 10, May 18, 1998 1623-1631
By


From the * Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria,
Australia 3052; the Macrophage tropic HIV-1 is predominant during the initial viremia after person to person
transmission of HIV-1 (Zhu, T., H. Mo, N. Wang, D.S. Nam, Y. Cao, R.A. Koup, and D.D.
Ho. 1993. Science. 261:1179-1181.), and this selection may occur during virus entry and carriage to the lymphoid tissue. Human skin explants were used to model HIV-1 selection that
may occur at the skin or mucosal surface. Macrophage tropic, but not T cell line tropic strains of HIV-1 applied to the abraded epidermis were recovered from the cells emigrating from the
skin explants. Dermis and epidermis were separated by dispase digestion after virus exposure to
determine the site of viral selection within the skin. Uptake and transmission to T cells of all
HIV-1 isolates was found with the dermal emigrant cells, but only macrophage tropic virus was
transferred by emigrants from the epidermis exposed to HIV-1, indicating selection only within the epidermis. CD3+, CD4+ T cells were found in both the dermal and epidermal emigrant cells. After cell sorting to exclude contaminating T cells, macrophage tropic HIV-1 was
found in both the dermal emigrant dendritic cells and in dendritic cells sorted from the epidermal emigrants. These observations suggest that selective infection of the immature epidermal
dendritic cells represents the cellular mechanism that limits the initial viremia to HIV-1 that
can use the CCR5 coreceptor.
Alfred Hospital, Prahran, Victoria, Australia 3181; the § Department of Plastic
Surgery, St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3065; and the
AIDS Pathogenesis
Research Unit, Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research, Fairfield, Victoria, Australia 3078
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