In vitro, beta-herpesviruses can stimulate or inhibit HIV replication under particular circumstances. In order to investigate the effects of beta-herpesvirus infection on HIV replication and vice versa at an organ level, we determined the quantitative relationships between cytomegalovirus (CMV), human herpesviruses (HHV) 6 and 7, and HIV-1 proviral DNA using quantitative competitive PCR methods in 141 organs collected at autopsy from 11 AIDS patients. The presence of HHV-6 DNA in an organ was significantly associated with elevated HIV-1 proviral DNA (difference in HIV median loads, 1.3 log10 genomes; P = 0.004). Consistent with this, there was a trend for the presence of HIV-1 proviral DNA to be associated with an elevated HHV-6 load (0.44 log10 difference; P = 0.07). In contrast, there were no significant differences between viral loads in the combinations of either CMV or HHV-7 with HIV-1 proviral DNA load. Pairwise combinations of the beta-herpesviruses revealed that the quantity of HHV-7 was increased in the presence of HHV-6 (difference in median loads, 1.3 log10; P = 0.001) and the quantity of HHV-6 was increased in the presence of HHV-7 (difference in median loads, 0.7 log10; P=0.002). These results demonstrate that the presence of HHV-6 in an organ is significantly associated with an elevated HIV-1 proviral load and have implications for understanding HIV pathogenesis in the human host and the role that beta-herpesviruses, especially HHV-6, might play as cofactors in the HIV disease process.

Most HIV infections worldwide are acquired sexually, yet most coital episodes involving an infected partner do not result in acquisition of HIV. Acquisition of HIV must depend on both the volume of secretions transferred from the infected partner (donor) and the concentration of HIV present in the secretions. However, exposure alone to such a virus inoculum is clearly insufficient to ensure transmission. The coexistence of other sexually transmitted diseases in either the recipient or donor could potentially increase the risk of transmission by causing genital ulcers or by releasing inflammatory cytokines which increase HIV replication.1 We measured the HIV load in the semen and blood of HIV infected patients presenting with acute sexually transmitted diseases to determine if viral load …