Epidermal langerhans cells of AIDS patients express HIV-1 regulatory and structural genes

In this study we searched for the presence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1)-spliced mRNA in epidermal cells from AIDS patients. Using reverse polymerase chain reaction and Southern hybridization we detected mRNA for HIV-1 regulatory (tat, rev, nef) and structural genes (env) in epidermal cells highly enriched for Langerhans cells, but not in Langerhans cell-depleted epidermal cells in two of three HIV-1-infected patients tested. In contrast to the expression of HIV-1 mRNA, T-cell-specific mRNA was readily detectable in all preparations of Langerhans cell-depleted but in only one preparation of Langerhans cell-enriched epidermal cells. This indicates that contaminating T cells are a very unlikely source of virus-specific mRNA in our epidermal cell preparations. Our data suggest that Langerhans cells are the main, if not the only, cell type infected with HIV-1 within the epidermis of AIDS patients and demonstrate that HIV-1 regulatory as well as structural genes are transcribed in these cells.