HIV-1 interacts with human testicular germ cells in vitro

Background The recent reports of the endogenisation of SIV in primates demonstrate that lentiviruses can infect the germinal lineage. Testicular germ cells (TGC) of both infected men and macaques have been shown to harbor HIV-1/SIV nucleic acids and/or proteins in situ by several teams including ours. Although HIV-1 binds but cannot enter isolated human spermatozoa, viral DNA has been detected in a few sperm cells from infected men, suggesting a clonal infection of their progenitors, the TGC. In this context, our investigation focused on the ability of human TGC to interact with HIV-1.