Cardiac myocytes and dendritic cells harbor human immunodeficiency virus in infected patients with and without cardiac dysfunction: Detection by multiplex, nested, polymerase chain reaction in individually microdissected cells from right ventricular endomyocardial biopsy tissue

• Published in: The American journal of cardiology Vol. 68; no. 15; pp. 1511 - 1520
• Main Authors: Rodriguez, E.Rene, Nasim, Suhail, Hsia, Judith, Sandin, Ramón L., Ferreira, Andrea, Hilliard, Betty A., Ross, Allan M., Garrett, Carleton T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.12.1991
• Subjects: Adult; AIDS/HIV; Base Sequence; Biopsy; Blotting, Southern; Dendritic Cells - microbiology; Heart Diseases - microbiology; Heart Ventricles - microbiology; Heart Ventricles - physiopathology; HIV Infections - microbiology; HIV Infections - physiopathology; HIV-1 - isolation & purification; Humans; Immunoenzyme Techniques; Middle Aged; Molecular Sequence Data; Myocardium - cytology; Polymerase Chain Reaction - methods; Prospective Studies
• ISSN: 0002-9149; 1879-1913
• DOI: 10.1016/0002-9149(91)90288-V

Two hundred fifteen patients infected with human immunodeficiency viras (HIV) participated in a prospective longitudinal study of HIV-related heart disease. Evaluation included signal-averaged etectrocardiography and echocardiography. Fifteen patients underwent endomyocardial biopsy, 5 had cardiovascular symptoms and 10 did not. Cardiac myocytes or dendritic cells were prepared by individual cell microdissection to sort them from other cell types such as interstitial cells or circulating blood elements. HIV proviral sequences were amplified in samples of 15 to 20 cells of each type by multiplex, nested, polymerase chain reaction and hybridized to 32P-labeled probes specific for regions within the gag and pol genes of HIV-1. The results showed the presence of HIV sequences in myocytes of 2 of 5 patients with cardiac symptoms and in 6 of 10 without. Thus, symptomatic HIV cardiomyopathy did not appear to be a direct consequence of the viras on myocardial cells. In dendritic cells, HIV sequences were detected in 5 of 5 patients with cardiac symptoms and in 8 of 10 with apparently normal ventricular function. Furthermore, dendritic cells were somewhat more numerous in the myocardium of symptomatic than asymptomatic patients. Our studies are the first to directly detect the HIV genome in purified cardiac myocytes from patients with and without cardiac dysfunction. Our findings do not support a direct role of the viras in myocardial dysfunction. However, the results do suggest that the interstitial dendritic cells may be involved in some manner in the development of cardiac dysfunction observed in HIV-infected patients.