HCMV activates PI(3)K in monocytes and promotes monocyte motility and transendothelial migration in a...

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised hosts. In immunocompetent hosts, HCMV is associated with chronic inflammatory diseases including atherosclerosis. Monocytes and macrophages are proposed to play key roles in HCMV dissemination to host tissue, and their infection provides a biological link between the lifecycle of HCMV and disease pathology. We hypothesize that viral spread occurs via a mechanism in which infected peripheral blood monocytes, which are nonpermissive for viral replication, extravasate into host tissue and subsequently differentiate into permissive macrophages. Supporting this hypothesis, we recently showed that HCMV specifically induced the differentiation of monocytes into macrophages that become permissive for viral replication. To expand our understanding of HCMV pathogenesis, we next examined monocyte activation and migration, the first events in viral pathogenesis. We show here that HCMV up-regulates phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5 triphosphate kinase [PI(3)K] activity and that this increased PI(3)K activity is essential for infected monocyte-transendothelial migration. This increase in migration occurs through the up-regulation of cell motility in a PI(3)K-dependent process. Last, we show that these activated monocytes express a number of inflammatory mediators via PI(3)K signaling. We propose that the up-regulation of monocyte migration and immune mediators by HCMV infection is required for the hematogenous dissemination of the virus and as a consequence, could promote chronic inflammatory diseases associated with HCMV infection.