School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
BMC Med. 2012 Apr 3;10:32. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-10-32.
An estimated one-third of individuals positive for HIV are also infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). Chronic infection with HCV can lead to serious liver disease including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Liver-related disease is among the leading causes of death in patients with HIV, and individuals with HIV and HCV co-infection are found to progress more rapidly to serious liver disease than mono-infected individuals. The mechanism by which HIV affects HCV infection in the absence of immunosuppression by HIV is currently unknown. In a recent article published in BMC Immunology, Qu et al. demonstrated that HIV tat is capable of inducing IP-10 expression. Further, they were able to show that HIV tat, when added to cells, was able to enhance the replication of HCV. Importantly, the increase in HCV replication by tat was found to be dependent on IP-10. This work has important implications for understanding the effect HIV has on the outcome of HCV infection in co-infected individuals. The findings of Qu et al. may inform the design of intervention and treatment strategies for co-infected individuals.Please see related article: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2172/13/15.
估计有三分之一的 HIV 阳性个体也感染了丙型肝炎病毒 (HCV)。HCV 的慢性感染可导致严重的肝脏疾病，包括肝硬化和肝细胞癌。肝脏相关疾病是 HIV 患者死亡的主要原因之一，并且 HIV 和 HCV 合并感染的个体比单一感染个体更容易迅速发展为严重的肝脏疾病。在没有 HIV 免疫抑制的情况下，HIV 影响 HCV 感染的机制目前尚不清楚。在最近发表在 BMC 免疫学上的一篇文章中，Qu 等人证明了 HIV tat 能够诱导 IP-10 的表达。此外，他们能够表明 HIV tat 在添加到细胞中时能够增强 HCV 的复制。重要的是，tat 增加 HCV 复制的作用被发现依赖于 IP-10。这项工作对于理解 HIV 对合并感染个体 HCV 感染结果的影响具有重要意义。Qu 等人的发现可能为合并感染个体的干预和治疗策略的设计提供信息。请参阅相关文章：http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2172/13/15。
