How the border guards fail in HIV infection
Using a novel technique to analyze antibodies in fluid collected from intestines of 81 HIV-1-in fected and 25 control individuals, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have found abnormal gut antibody levels in people infected with HIV-1. This antibody dysregulation, they say, may be an important factor contributing to the failure of the gut to prevent the inflammatory microbial invasion of the bloodstream. The researchers, led by Zdenek Hel, Ph.D., associate professor in the UAB Department of Pathology, used a technique called protein microarray analysis. A total of 39 different protein antigens from gut bacteria -- antigens that are known to elicit antibody immune responses in humans against those antigens -- were used to bind antibodies from gut wash fluid. A variety of food antigen proteins were also used to bind antibodies. Researchers then could test what types of antibodies were produced in HIV-1- positive and HIV-1-negative subjects. Hel and colleagues found t...