Biomedical subjects

P Lusso

Publications and source records attributed to P Lusso.

111 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Productive infection of HUVEC by HHV-8 is associated with changes compatible with angiogenic transformations.

Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS) is an angioproliferative disease associated with human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) infection. We have characterized the morphologic and phenotypic modifications of HUVEC in a model of productive HHV-8 infection. HHV-8 replication was associated with ultra-structural changes, flattened soma and a loss of marginal folds and intercellular contacts, and morphologic features, spindle cell conversion and cordon-like structures formation. Phenotypic changes observed on cordon-like structures included partial loss and redistribution of CD31/PECAM-1 and VE-cadherin, uPAR up-regulation and de novo expression of CD13/APN. Such changes demonstrate the induction, in HUVEC, of an angiogenic profile. Most of these findings are directly linked to HHV-8-encoded proteins expression, suggesting that HHV-8 itself may participate to the initial steps of the angiogenic transformation in KS.

Antigens, Viral↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Analysis of serum and plasma beta chemokines in primary HIV infection (PHI).

The levels of certain beta-chemokines in biological fluids do not necessarily reflect their circulating concentrations as they may be dramatically influenced by ex vivo release during sample manipulation. In the present study beta-chemochine levels were evaluated in sequential paired plasma and serum samples collected from a cohort of 18 patients with primary HIV infection (PHI), as well as from 17 HIV-seronegative individuals. In plasma of PHI patients, a significant increase of RANTES (mean 119.1 vs 15.85 ng/ml; p=0.0001) and MIP-1beta (mean 53.4 pg/ml vs 33.6 pg/ml; p=0.0001) was documented. Intra-patient covariance analysis demonstrated no significant association between the variations of RANTES in plasma and serum or between RANTES levels and platelet counts. Reproducibility tests of RANTES measurements in plasma from PHI patients showed a mean coefficient of variation of 1.8%. These data demonstrate that the plasma levels of RANTES and, to a lesser extent, MIP-1beta are persistently perturbed during the early phase of HIV infection. Furthermore they indicate that plasma and serum levels are not directly correlated, being influenced by different physiological phenomena that occur during the ex vivo preparation procedures of the two biological fluids.

Chemokine CCL4↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Increased plasma levels of the C-C chemokine RANTES in patients with primary HIV-1 infection.

To investigate the role played by chemokines in the natural history of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, we measured the plasma levels of RANTES. MIP-1 alpha and MIP-1 beta in a cohort of patients with primary HIV-1 infection (PHI) followed longitudinally. The cohort included 17 patients with well-documented history of acute HIV syndrome within two months of the first observation. The mean plasma concentration of RANTES, but not that of MIP-1 alpha or MIP-1 beta, was significantly higher in patients with PHI (192.3 ng/ml) than in five HIV-seronegative controls (8.0 ng/ml) studied during the same time period. Treatment of blood with a cocktail of drugs preventing platelet activation, followed by high-speed centrifugation, reduced the levels of RANTES by approximately 2 logs both in patients and in controls, indicating that the bulk of RANTES was released by platelets, which are known to store this chemokine in their alpha-granules, in the immediate aftermath of blood drawing. No correlation was seen between the levels of RANTES and the number of HIV genome equivalents in plasma. These data suggest that large amounts of pre-formed RANTES are stored in platelets and, possibly, in other blood cells during the early phases of HIV infection. The possible role of this HIV-suppressive chemokine in the control of viral replication during PHI remains to be established.

Chemokine CCL5↗