Mg. Pittis et al., MONOCYTE PHAGOLYSOSOMAL FUSION IN CHILDREN BORN TO HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS-INFECTED MOTHERS, The Pediatric infectious disease journal, 16(1), 1997, pp. 24-28
Background. Previously we demonstrated that monocyte phagolysosomal fu
sion is impaired in chronic HIV infection in adult patients. Methods.
We studied the phagolysosomal fusion of peripheral blood monocytes fro
m 45 children vertically infected with HIV, 38 noninfected infants bor
n to HIV-positive mothers and 14 children born to HIV-seronegative wom
en, by a cytomorphologic method in which acridine orange is used as a
fusion marker. Results. The mean percentages of phagolysosomal fusion
+/- SD were 42 +/- 16.1 for HIV-positive children, 55.3 +/- 15.5 for H
IV-negative infants born to HIV-infected mothers and 58.2 +/- 12.7 for
normal controls. Monocyte phagolysosomal fusion of HIV-infected child
ren was significantly decreased in comparison to noninfected and norma
l infants (P < 0.001), while there was no difference between the two l
atter groups. Phagolysosomal fusion impairment in HIV-infected infants
inversely correlated with age (r = -0.4527; P < 0.002) and directly c
orrelated with CD4+ T cell counts (r = 0.393; P = 0.03). Moreover, pha
golysosomal fusion strongly correlated with clinical manifestations; t
his function was significantly impaired in moderately and severely sym
ptomatic HIV-infected children with respect to those who remained asym
ptomatic or mildly symptomatic (P < 0.05). Conclusions. Our results su
ggest that monocyte function in HIV-infected children progressively de
teriorates, closely related to the severity of the clinical symptoms.