HIV Triggers B Cells to Destruct

While HIV's ability to infect and destroy CD4 cells is widely known, researchers now say the virus also can immobilize or kill B cells, immune system cells that produce virus-destroying antibodies. 'The virus has numerous ways of paralyzing or destroying the very cells of the immune system that are supposed to eliminate it,' researcher Susan Moir and colleagues write in the September online edition of Journal of Experimental Medicine. HIV works to 'turn on' more than 40 B-cell genes that help signal the cell to prematurely self-destruct through a process called apoptosis, according to the researchers. The cells also are instructed to overproduce nonessential antibodies and to fail to respond to normal immune system signals. The researchers now plan to see whether similar genetic pathways are used to trigger early apoptosis in CD4, CD8, and natural killer cells, all of which are targeted by HIV.