Virus Expression Database

GSE71290

Fibrocytes differ from macrophages but can be infected with HIV-1

Submitted by Shinya Suzu (kumamoto university, Japan) on Jul 28 2015

Platform: microarray – [HG-U133_Plus_2] Affymetrix Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0 Array

Pubmed: 26416279

Summary Fibrocytes (fibroblastic leukocytes) are recently identified as unique hematopoietic cells with features of both macrophages and fibroblasts. Fibrocytes are known to contribute to the remodeling or fibrosis of various injured tissues. However, their role in viral infection is not fully understood. Here we show that differentiated fibrocytes are phenotypically distinguishable from macrophages but can be infected with HIV-1. Importantly, fibrocytes exhibited persistently infected cell-like phenotypes, the degree of which was more apparent than macrophages. The infected fibrocytes produced replication-competent HIV-1, but expressed HIV-1 mRNA at low levels and strongly resisted HIV-1-induced cell death, which enabled them to support an extremely long-term HIV-1 production at low but steady levels. More importantly, our results suggested that fibrocytes were susceptible to HIV-1 regardless of their differentiation state, in contrast to the fact that monocytes become susceptible to HIV-1 after the differentiation into macrophages. Our findings indicate that fibrocytes are the previously unreported HIV-1 host cells, and suggest the importance of considering fibrocytes as one of long-lived persistently infected cells for curing HIV-1.

4 Samples

ID Title Cell Type Timepoint Reported Virus Virus Species Exclusion Reason
GSM1834872 fibrocyte fibrocyte none Uninfected
GSM1834873 macrophage macrophage  none Uninfected
GSM1834874 fibrocyte infected with HIV-1 at Day12 fibrocyte 12 days HIV-1 Human immunodeficiency virus 1
GSM1834875 macrophage infected with HIV-1 at Day3 macrophage  3 days HIV-1 Human immunodeficiency virus 1