Intestinal Mucosal Barrier Function in HIV Infection

Abstract Increased translocation of bacterial antigens across a defective intestinal mucosal barrier is currently regarded as a key driving mechanism of immune activation and disease progression in untreated HIV infection. Although this model integrates many significant findings of recent studies, it was partly based on indirect evidence, namely measurement of serum levels of bacterial antigens, which were taken for surrogates of a mucosal barrier defect. In this paper, we review studies which directly assessed the barrier function of the intestinal epithelium in HIV patients by either use of oral test solutions…