Kill the inflammation, kill the HIV?
WE don't yet know why HIV spreads to women so much more readily in Africa than elsewhere, but African women desperately need protection from the virus during sex. Now a cheap and relatively safe chemical that damps down vaginal inflammation may do just that.
Ashley Haase and colleagues at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis have discovered that a few epithelial cells on the cervix of female macaques are the first point of entry for SIV, the monkey equivalent of HIV. Nearby immune cells respond by emitting molecules that trigger inflammation and summon T-cells to the cervix. These would normally destroy invaders but T-cells happen to be the very cells SIV (and HIV) use to infect their new host.
Studies of toxic shock syndrome, a life-threatening bacterial infection that can affect women using tampons, had already identified chemicals that can suppress vaginal inflammation, including glycerol monolaurate, a constituent of vegetable oils used widely in food and deodorants.
