Cifone M G, Alesse E, Di Marzio L, Ruggeri B, Zazzeroni F, Moretti S, Famularo G, Steinberg S M, Vullo E, De Simone C
Department of Experimental Medicine, University of L'Aquila, Italy.
Proc Assoc Am Physicians. 1997 Mar;109(2):146-53.
Lymphocyte apoptosis in HIV-infected individuals may play a role in T-cell depletion and therefore favor progression to AIDS. In this study, we examined the effects of a short-term (5-day) intravenous treatment with L-carnitine (6 g/day) on apoptosis of CD4 and CD8 cells from 10 AIDS patients. L-carnitine administration has been shown to induce a strong reduction in the percentage of both CD4 and CD8 cells undergoing apoptosis. Interestingly, the L-carnitine treatment, which did not show relevant side effects in four patients, led to a strong and significant reduction of peripheral blood mononuclear cell-associated ceramide, an intracellular messenger of apoptosis, that positively correlated with the decrease of apoptotic CD4- and CD8-positive cells. These results suggest that L-carnitine could be an effective antiapoptotic drug in the treatment of AIDS patients.
HIV感染个体中的淋巴细胞凋亡可能在T细胞耗竭中起作用，因此有利于疾病进展至艾滋病。在本研究中，我们检测了10例艾滋病患者接受短期（5天）静脉注射L-肉碱（6克/天）治疗对CD4和CD8细胞凋亡的影响。已证明给予L-肉碱可使发生凋亡的CD4和CD8细胞百分比大幅降低。有趣的是，L-肉碱治疗在4例患者中未显示出相关副作用，导致外周血单核细胞相关神经酰胺（一种凋亡的细胞内信使）显著减少，且其与凋亡的CD4和CD8阳性细胞减少呈正相关。这些结果表明，L-肉碱可能是治疗艾滋病患者的一种有效抗凋亡药物。
