Yh. Chen et al., HIV-1 GP41 BINDING TO HUMAN PERIPHERAL-BLOOD MONONUCLEAR-CELLS OCCURSPREFERENTIALLY TO B-LYMPHOCYTES AND MONOCYTES, Immunobiology, 188(4-5), 1993, pp. 323-329
Based on our findings that HIV-1 gp41 independently of CD4 can bind to
the human helper T lymphoid cell line H9, B cell line Raji and monocy
te cell line U937, we characterized putative binding of HIV-1 gp41 to
human peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) and monocytes. Using flow cy
tometry (FACS), we demonstrated that the recombinant soluble HIV-1 gp4
1 (sgp41; Env amino acid 539-684) can bind to the normal human periphe
ral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), preferentially to B lymphocytes a
nd monocytes independently of gp120-binding sites on CD4 molecules. Th
is binding is dose-dependent. The HIV-1 sgp41 binds to blood B lymphoc
ytes and monocytes more strongly than to T lymphocytes. By two-color f
low cytometric analysis, we identified that sgp41 can bind 10 % of CD4
+ T lymphocytes, 11.9 % of CD8+ T lymphocytes, 47 % of CD19+ B lymphoc
ytes and 44.2 % of CD14+ monocytes.