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TheBody: HIV Seroconversion: Timeline, Symptoms, Testing, and Treatment

September 19, 2022 | Pippa Wysong

Rohit Talwani, MD

There are several stages of HIV infection—from the initial exposure to the virus to the development of AIDS—but a lot of important changes happen during the earliest stage: seroconversion.

So, exactly what is HIV seroconversion? It is the stage in which the immune system first starts to make antibodies to try to fight HIV after exposure. Once detectable levels of antibodies are produced, this is described as seroconversion.

The HIV seroconversion timeline starts with exposure to the virus. When the virus first enters the body, it seeks out cells to infect so it can start replicating, or making copies of itself.

Specifically, it seeks out a type of T cell (an immune cell) called CD4 cells. There are relatively large pools of CD4 cells in the gastrointestinal tract and lymph tissue in other parts of the body. The virus enters some of these CD4 cells and hijacks the cell’s internal machinery to make copies of itself. In turn, these copies then leave the cell to seek other cells to invade to make even more copies of the virus.

“At first, HIV is unchecked and can infect these cells at will,” says Rohit Talwani, MD, from the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Institute of Human Virology. This is because the immune system can’t respond instantly; the response takes a few steps.

At the very start of infection, the first part of the immune system to respond is the innate immune system. “This is the first line of defense. The innate immune system is nonspecific. It senses something foreign but doesn’t know specifically what it is. It knows the virus is something that’s not supposed to be there,” he says.

Read the full story

Contact

Vanessa McMains, PhD
Director, Media & Public Affairs
Institute of Human Virology
University of Maryland School of Medicine
vmcmains@ihv.umaryland.edu
443-875-6099

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