Early T-Precursor Thymocytes as Potential Target Cells for HIV Infection (AIDS)

Abstract : The research programme over this 1 1/2 year period has followed very closely our original proposal, where we aimed to isolate very early T precursors from the human thymus, to determine if they expressed CD4 as in the murine thymus, and then to test if they could be targets for HIV infection. However, several of our findings were unexpected, although still very pertinent to the current views on the development of AIDS. This will lead to some shift of emphasis in the second half of the grant period. We have prepared and conjugated all the monoclonal antibody reagents required for this previously murine T-cell laboratory to work on the human thymus. We have secured a reliable supply of infant thymus tissue. We have carried out a thorough flow cytometric analysis of human thymocyte populations, which has led to a paper describing several new observations. We have developed procedures to deplete human thymus cell suspensions of the more developed T-lineage cells, in order to obtain access to the very few early T precursors.