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Nature Medicine 12, 1351 - 1352 (2006)
doi:10.1038/nm1206-1351

Gut microbes out of control in HIV infection

Barton F Haynes1

  1. The author is at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, Center for HIV-AIDS Vaccine Immunology, Duke University School of Medicine, Circuit Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA. e-mail: haynes002@mc.duke.edu.


HIV-1 infection results in chronic activation of the immune system—a process that is thought to contribute to T-cell depletion and progression to AIDS. Chronic activation is now suggested to occur through a breakdown of the mucosal barrier and stimulation of immune cells by microbial products (pages 13651371).


A hallmark of pathogenic simian immuno- deficiency virus (SIV) and HIV-1 infections is persistent systemic immune activation—leading to exhausted immune responses, pro-inflammatory cytokine production and uncontrolled viral replication in activated T cells. In HIV-1 infection, the degree of immune activation is a better predictor of disease progression than plasma viral load1.

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