Abstract
HIV Plays (and Wins) a Game of T Cell Brinkmanship
Highlights
Viruses are locked into an adaptive arms race with the host immune system: the immune system adapts to recognize the virus, the virus adapts to evade the immune system, the cycle repeats
The ones that concern us here are the T helper cells (TH cells), which need to be activated by epitopes displayed on the surface of ‘‘professional antigen-presenting cells’’, and can collaborate with another type of T cell—the cytotoxic T cells (CTLs)—to destroy infected cells
Several theories have been advanced to explain this counterintuitive result, but a new study by Rafael Sanjuan, Jose Alcamı, and colleagues in PLOS Biology provides evidence for a tantalizing and potentially important new explanation. It revolves around another peculiarity of HIV—the fact that it infects the very cells that are responsible for the cellular immune response—the T cells themselves
Summary
Viruses are locked into an adaptive arms race with the host immune system: the immune system adapts to recognize the virus, the virus adapts to evade the immune system, the cycle repeats. The cellular branch of the immune system comprises T cells that recognize specific short peptides (epitopes) clipped from viral proteins and displayed on the surface of infected cells. This means that there’s a strong incentive for the corresponding epitopes of the viral proteins to mutate, allowing the virus to escape T cell surveillance and survive for longer in the host body.
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