Principal Investigator: David Russell

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 

Despite several reports of HIV-1-infected alveolar macrophages (AM) in the lungs of HIV-1-infected individuals, the roles played by these cells in the maintenance or persistence of infection remain unresolved. Recent studies in Malawi, conducted on AM from HIV-1-infected individuals that are effectively virallysuppressed by long-term ART, reproducibly detected the presence of HIV-1 mRNA by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). In these studies, we also detected HIV-1 transcripts through single cell sequencing protocols, and have isolated infectious HIV-1 virus from cells recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage from ARTnaïve, HIV-1-infected volunteers. The hypothesis we propose to test is that the presence of HIV-1 transcripts in the alveolar macrophages of HIVinfected individuals is indicative of a productive viral infection that has significance for persistence of the virus during ART.