Journal of Virology, October 2001, p. 9187-9200, Vol. 75, No. 19
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.19.9187-9200.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Department of Immunology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California 92037,1 and Center for Human Genetics, University of Leuven and Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium2
Received 7 March 2001/Accepted 28 June 2001
Macrophages are thought to represent one of the first cell types in
the body to be infected during the early stage of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) transmission and represent a
potential viral reservoir in vivo. Thus, an understanding of HIV-1
attachment to these cells is fundamental to the development of novel
anti-HIV-1 therapies. Although one of the major targets of HIV-1 in
vivo
CD4+ T lymphocytes
express high CD4 levels, other
major targets such as macrophages do not. We asked in this study
whether this low CD4 level on macrophages is sufficient to support
HIV-1 attachment to these cells or whether cell surface proteins other
than CD4 are required for this process. We show that CD4 alone is not
sufficient to support the initial adsorption of HIV-1 to macrophages.
Importantly, we find that heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) serve
as the main class of attachment receptors for HIV-1 on macrophages.
Most importantly, we demonstrate that a single family of HSPGs, the syndecans, efficiently mediates HIV-1 attachment and represents an
abundant class of attachment receptors on macrophages.
This is publication no. 13562-IMM from the Department of
Immunology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif.
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