Pavel Bostik
Charles University School of Medicine ,Czech Republic
Title: Mechanisms of apoptosis induced in immune cells directly od indirectly by virus infection
Biography
Biography: Pavel Bostik
Abstract
Apoptosis of immune cells is an important factor in pathogenesis of certain viral diseases. Specifically those viruses, which target directly immune cells - e.g. lymphocytes - manifest often, at least in part, with increased cell death with consequent immune deficits. Typically in the diseases like HIV infection, the virus targets CD4+ T cells, which then undergo apoptosis or activation induced cell death at an increasing rate. Other viruses, e.g. some herpetic viruses are known to infect immune cells, but the role of this infection in the immune response of the host is not clear. The potential of other viruses, such as HCV, to target directly immune cells is still being discussed. Several pathways, which can serve as targets for virus-induced dysregulation of immune cells, can have a significant effect on apoptosis. One of the important ones is mediated by Akt kinase. This kinase is regulated mainly by phosphorylation of two sites - Ser473 and Thr310. The phosphorylation status of these sites dictates downstream signaling through GSK3beta, which manifests by phosphorylation of its Ser9 site. We show, that several viruses mentioned above exert significant effects on this pathway, which, in turn, correlates with the rate of apoptosis of T lymphocytes.
