Cell dysfunction and depletion in AIDS: the programmed cell death hypothesis

Abstract

Normal immature thymocytes respond to activation by undergoing programmed cell death (apoptosis), a physiological deletion mechanism involved in the selection of the T-cell repertoire. In this article, Jean Claude Ameisen and André Capron suggest that inappropriate induction of a form of programmed T-cell death could account for both qualitative and quantitative helper T-cell defects of HIV-infected patients. A model of AIDS pathogenesis is presented that may explain several features of HIV infection, including evolution of the disease and the development of defects in nonimmunological organs.