JC July, 1994 - IL12 and HIV

[J Matthew Buchanan]

The loss of IL-12 production in the PBMC and not in lymphoid organ cells may be
due to the current locale of the HIV.  There is thought that the HIV localizes 
itself during stages of infection, going from a high viremia to a 'hiding' 
state in the lymph organs.  It would be in teresting to see if the loss of 
IL-12 production follows the virus during a time-course study.

The idea that distant cells could make up for the local IL-12 producito loss 
ignores the idea that cytokines acive some specificity by acitng over only very
short distances.  Thus, distant IL-12 probably remains just that, distant.  A 
local loss of IL-12 would have a local loss of TH1 and CMI, not systemic.  
Possibly, this would become systemic over time, however, if enough local 
wipeouts occured.

In the latest Science, Fauci and another group present papers stating that they
did not observe a loss in TH1 profiles.  Il-12 was not addressed (at least not 
noticed in my first skim!).  Gets more and more confusing all the time....

The quest marches on.....


Matt
MBUCHANAN at opus.mco.edu