Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Follicular Dendritic Cells, Human Immunodeficency Virus Type 1, And Alpha 1 Antitrypsin, Xueyuan Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

HIV/AIDS is raging and causing millions of deaths around the world. The major challenge in treating HIV/AIDS is the establishment of HIV reservoirs where the viruse escapes both drug and immune system attempts at eradication. Throughout the course of HIV/AIDS, productive HIV infection occurs primarily in the lymphoid follicles or germinal centers (GC) surrounding follicular dendritic cells (FDC). In the GCs, FDCs trap and maintain infectious HIV for years and provide these infectious viruses to the host cells. FDCs also attract B and T cells into the GCs and increase the ability of CD4+ T cells to be infected. Additionally, …