{"doi":"10.20411/pai.v7i2.524","title":"HIV-1 is Transported into the Central Nervous System by Trafficking Infected Cells","abstract":"Background: In this work, we carried out a cross-sectional study examining HIV-1 and HCV free virus concentrations in blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to determine whether HIV-1 enters the central nervous system (CNS) passively as virus particles or in the context of migrating infected cells. If virions migrate freely across the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCSFB) or the blood-brain barrier (BBB) then HCV and HIV-1 would be detectable in the CSF at proportions similar to that in the blood. Alternatively, virus entry as an infected cell would favor selective entry of HIV-1. Methods: sequences and performed phylogenetic analyses to determine whether HIV-1 populations in the CSF of these participants were being maintained by local replication. Results: While CSF samples taken from all participants had detectable levels of HIV-1, HCV was not detectable in any of the CSF samples despite participants having HCV concentrations in their blood plasma, which exceeded that of HIV-1. Further, there was no evidence of compartmentalized HIV-1 replication in the CNS (Supplementary Figure 1). These results are consistent with a model where HIV-1 particles cross the BBB or the BCSFB within infected cells. In this scenario, we would expect HIV-1 to reach the CSF more readily because the blood contains a much greater number of HIV-infected cells than HCV-infected cells. Conclusions: HCV entry into the CSF is restricted, indicating that virions do not freely migrate across these barriers and supporting the concept that HIV-1 is transported across the BCSFB and/or BBB by the migration of HIV-infected cells as part of an inflammatory response or normal surveillance.","journal":"Pathogens and Immunity","year":2023,"id":340596,"datarank":0.41588830833596724,"base_score":2.772588722239781,"endowment":2.772588722239781,"self_citation_contribution":0.41588830833596724,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.41588830833596724,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":15,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9626,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":593344,"name":"Gretja Schnell","orcid":"0000-0002-2085-7314","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":247475,"name":"Ronald Swanstrom","orcid":"0000-0001-7777-0773","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334463,"name":"Melissa B. Miller","orcid":"0000-0002-0296-3535","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":69477,"name":"Serena Spudich","orcid":"0000-0001-6032-3950","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249713,"name":"Joseph J. Eron","orcid":"0000-0002-4938-0644","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":364407,"name":"Richard W. Price","orcid":"0000-0001-5429-6044","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249717,"name":"Sarah Joseph","orcid":"0000-0001-9603-574X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":605013,"name":"Laura P. Kincer","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":40,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:10:58.548803Z","pmid":"36865569","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":[]}