{"doi":"10.1089/aid.2022.0091","title":"A Simian Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Macaque Model of <i>Enterocytozoon bieneusi</i> Infection","abstract":"Microsporidiosis caused by Enterocytozoon bieneusi is a common opportunistic infection in patients with HIV/AIDS and those on immunosuppressive therapy. A significant loss of mucosal or peripheral CD4 + T cells and subsequent dysfunction of the intestinal immune system may be responsible for the development of chronic microsporidiosis in these patients. We have used the Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)-infected macaque model to investigate this relationship. To establish the course of E. bieneusi infection in SIV-infected animals, four SIV-infected animals were experimentally challenged with E. bieneusi when their CD4 + counts dropped to less than 300 cells/μL of blood. Analysis of fecal samples by nested polymerase chain reaction revealed that three out of four E. bieneusi -infected macaques continued to shed spores for 7–24 months after infection, an indication of chronic microsporidiosis. Four other SIV-infected macaques, after having an initial negative phase, spontaneously acquired E. bieneusi infection when their CD4 + counts dropped to less than 600 cells/μL of blood and shed spores for 8–19 months. The shedding of E. bieneusi spores in the feces increased relative to decrease in peripheral blood CD4 + T cell numbers. Gut biopsies were obtained before and after challenge to phenotype the mucosal lymphocyte subsets using flow cytometry. The immunophenotypic analysis showed no restoration of CD4 + T cells after E. bieneusi infection in the intestinal cells. A slight increase in the percentage population of CD4 + T cells in peripheral blood did not have any effect on the control of E. bieneusi infection in the SIV-infected macaques. These preliminary studies demonstrate that SIV-infected macaques develop chronic E. bieneusi infections as their CD4 + counts dropped to below 300 cells/μL of blood.","journal":"AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses","year":2022,"id":313326,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9443,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":484783,"name":"Saul Tzipori","orcid":"0000-0003-4429-3856","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1011582,"name":"Inderpal Singh","orcid":"0000-0003-4938-2276","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":34,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:33:44.454239Z","pmid":"36424832","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}