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HIV

Slipping under the radar

Nature volume 503, pages 352–353 (2013)Cite this article

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HIV avoids triggering the cell receptors that initiate the host's innate immune responses. It seems that the virus achieves this evasion by using its protein coat to hide its nucleic acids until they are beyond detection. See Letter p.402

Many cells use an elaborate warning system to detect and respond to viral infection. A variety of viral proteins and nucleic-acid structures, called pathogen-associated molecular patterns, serve as warning flags for infection (for a review, see ref. 1). Detection of one of these patterns can trigger a cell to produce interferons and other cytokines — cell-signalling molecules that induce the expression of antiviral genes in neighbouring cells, thereby establishing in them a protective antiviral state. Unlike many other viruses, retroviruses such as HIV-1 tend to be poor inducers of interferons, although they are highly sensitive to inhibition by interferon-stimulated gene products if these genes are artificially induced. How these viruses evade detection has been unclear, but in this issue, Rasaiyaah et al.2, (page 402) provide intriguing evidence that HIV-1 slips under the radar of the surveillance system by using its viral capsid — the protein shell surrounding the viral genome — to hide its nucleic acids during the early stages of infection. The authors show that disrupting the proper capsid structure or the timing of the infection can expose this hidden viral DNA to detection.

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Figure 1: Retroviral evasion of immune detection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stephen P. Goff is in the Departments of Microbiology & Immunology and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10032, USA.,

    Stephen P. Goff

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  1. Stephen P. Goff
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Correspondence to Stephen P. Goff.

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Goff, S. Slipping under the radar. Nature 503, 352–353 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12707

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