MONDAY, Jan. 21 (HealthDay News) -- The female reproductive tract of a humanized mouse model has been shown to contain all populations of human cells necessary for HIV-1 infection, allowing researchers to demonstrate that antiretroviral prophylaxis can prevent vaginal transmission of the virus. The research was reported in the January issue of PLoS Medicine.
Paul Denton of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and colleagues created humanized bone marrow-liver-thymus (BLT) mice by implanting human fetal liver and thymus tissue in the mice and then transplanting them with autologous human fetal liver CD34+ cells. They inoculated mice intravaginally with HIV-1 virus after administrating emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate to some of them.
The researchers found that CD4+ T cell depletion in gut-associated lymphoid tissue in response to infection resembles that found in humans with HIV-1 infection. Eighty-eight percent of mice (seven of eight) inoculated with the virus became infected, but none of another group of five animals treated with antiretrovirals before and after exposure showed signs of infection.
"If proven safe and effective, pre-exposure prophylaxis together with other behavioral interventions could provide protection to men and women at risk of HIV infection by preventing sexual transmission. Therefore, it is critical to evaluate new prevention methods aimed at the populations at highest risk. Despite the urgency to develop and implement novel approaches capable of preventing HIV transmission, this process has been hindered by the lack of adequate animal models readily available for pre-clinical efficacy and safety testing," the authors write.
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