Dissociation of AIDS-related vacuolar myelopathy and productive HIV-1 infection of the spinal cord. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Although merging clinically within the spectrum of the AIDS dementia complex, vacuolar myelopathy is a pathologically distinct entity detected in up to 30% of autopsied patients succumbing to the late complications of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. Using immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization to detect an HIV-1 core protein and viral mRNA, respectively, in tissue sections, and culture isolation to assess infectious virus in tissue homogenates, we found that vacuolar myelopathy was independent of productive HIV-1 infection of the spinal cord and brain. These results indicate that AIDS-associated vacuolar myelopathy is either not related directly to spinal cord HIV-1 infection or involves nonproductive infection and pathobiological processes distinct from those responsible for the multinucleated-cell inflammatory infiltrates that serve as histopathologic markers of productive CNS HIV-1 infection.

publication date

  • July 1, 1989

Research

keywords

  • Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
  • Spinal Cord Diseases

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 0024321846

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1212/wnl.39.7.892

PubMed ID

  • 2739916

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 39

issue

  • 7