HIV-1 trafficking to the dendritic cell-T-cell infectious synapse uses a pathway of tetraspanin sorting to the immunological synapse.

Dendritic cells (DCs) are essential components of the early events of HIV infection. Here, we characterized the trafficking pathways that HIV-1 follows during its capture by DCs and its subsequent presentation to CD4(+) T cells via an infectious synapse. Immunofluorescence microscopy indicates that the virus-containing compartment in mature DCs (mDCs) co-labels for the tetraspanins CD81, CD82, and CD9 but contains little CD63 or LAMP-1. Using ratio imaging of pH-reporting fluorescent virions in live DCs, we show that HIV-1 is internalized in an intracellular endocytic compartment with a pH of 6.2. Significantly, we demonstrate that the infectivity of cell-free virus is more stable at mildly acidic pH than at neutral pH. Using electron microscopy, we confirm that HIV-1 accumulates in intracellular vacuoles that contain CD81 positive internal membranes but overlaps only partially with CD63. When allowed to contact T cells, HIV-1-loaded DCs redistribute CD81, and CD9, as well as internalized HIV-1, but not the immunological synapse markers MHC-II and T-cell receptor to the infectious synapse. Together, our results indicate that HIV-1 is internalized into a non-conventional, non-lysosomal, endocytic compartment in mDCs and further suggest that HIV-1 is able to selectively subvert components of the intracellular trafficking machinery required for formation of the DC-T-cell immunological synapse to facilitate its own cell-to-cell transfer and propagation.