| HIV infection allowed certain strains of salmonella |
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 Salmonella human cells (red)
Researchers have discovered how a defective immune response in Africans infected by HIV infection allowed certain strains of salmonella, which could explain why these patients have such mortality with these opportunistic pathogens. Their results could also lead to the future of vaccines against HIV may also protect more effective against salmonella infections.
In a normal immune response, the antibodies are directed against proteins of the outer membrane and they can afford to kill salmonella and eliminate the infection. Calman MacLennan the Medical Research Council Centre for Immune Regulation and Clinical Immunology Service and the University Birmingham the United Kingdom, and colleagues expected that people infected with HIV have difficulty in producing antibodies against salmonella, but they found the opposite higher concentrations of antibodies directed specifically against the lip polysaccharide or bacterial LPS, and proteins from the bacterial cell wall
The researchers then found that the serum infected with HIV could still kill the salmonella strains devoid of LPS and the removal of LPS-specific antibodies in the serum made him effective against salmonella. Their discovery implies that HIV causes a failure of recognition of LPS not only in the cellular compartment of the immune system but also in that hum oral acting as the secreted antibodies. This deficiency in the immune system has serious consequences for patients infected with HIV face of secondary infections, and researchers suggest that future vaccines target the outer membrane of Salmonella rather than LPS. Another article in Science further explains these results and their implications.
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