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Depletion of CD4+ T cells from the gut occurs rapidly during acute HIV-1 infection. This has been linked to systemic inflammation and disease progression as a result of translocation of microbial products from the gut lumen into the bloodstream. Combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) substantially restores CD4+ T cell numbers in peripheral blood, but the gut compartment remains largely depleted of such cells for poorly understood reasons. Here, we show that a lack of recruitment of CD4+ T cells to the gut could be involved in the incomplete mucosal immune reconstitution of cART-treated HIV-infected individuals. We investigated the trafficking of CD4+ T cells expressing the gut-homing receptors CCR9 and integrin α4β7 and found that many of these T cells remained in the circulation rather than repopulating the mucosa of the small intestine. This is likely because expression of the CCR9 ligand CCL25 was lower in the small intestine of HIV-infected individuals. The defective gut homing of CCR9+β7+ CD4+ T cells -- a population that we found included most gut-homing Th17 cells, which have a critical role in mucosal immune defense -- correlated with high plasma concentrations of markers of mucosal damage, microbial translocation, and systemic T cell activation. Our results thus describe alterations in CD4+ T cell homing to the gut that could prevent efficient mucosal immune reconstitution in HIV-infected individuals despite effective cART. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the HIV type 1 coreceptor usage by genotypic algorithms that is built from the subtype B virus. The study performed a recombinant virus phenotypic entry assay to 52 patients infected with HIV-1 subtype C virus that were recruited in Malawi and another 21 patients recruited in France. It shows that the patient's virological and clinical characteristics were not significantly different according to CCR5 or CXCR4 virus coreceptor usage.

BACKGROUND: To date, assisted reproductive technology (ART) with sperm washing is offered to serodiscordant couples with an human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infected male partner in order to have a child while reducing the risk of transmission to the woman. However, ART programmes are not possible if the man is azoospermic. We report here the first birth following intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) using frozen epididymal spermatozoa obtained after surgical sperm retrieval in a HIV-1 infected man with obstructive azoospermia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Comments on a study concerning the desire of HIV-positive men and women to have children. Demographic characteristics of HIV-positive persons; Artificial insemination of HIV-infected person and an uninfected partner.