Visualizing the Behavior of HIV-Infected T Cells In Vivo Using Multiphoton Intravital Microscopy

The introduction of multiphoton microscopy has dramatically broadened the scope of intravital imaging studies and has allowed researchers to validate and refine basic mechanistic concepts in many areas of biology within the context of physiologically relevant tissue microenvironments. This has also led to new insights into the behavior of immune cells at steady state, and how their behaviors are altered during an immune response. At the same time, advances in the humanized mouse model have allowed for in vivo studies of strictly human pathogens, such as HIV-1. Here, we describe in detail an intravital microscopy approach to visualize the dynamic behavior of HIV-infected T cells within the lymph nodes of live, anesthetized humanized mice.