Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
CONCLUSION
During HIV infection, mitochondria are involved in a variety of pathways and
processes. Not only are they crucial for producing the energy required by the
cell to survive and maintain homeostasis, but also, acting at di¨erent levels,
these organelles are capable of inducing or modulating cell death. The tech-
niques we have described in this chapter provide a very useful tool for those
investigators interested in studying mitochondria during HIV infection, as they
allow functional analysis of intact, living cells.
Moreover, there is a continuous development of new ¯uorescent probes for
the detection of biological parameters related to mitochondrial activity, and it
is reasonable to predict that other new methods and techniques will be set up
soon. The use of multiple lasers and of even more sophisticated activated cell
sorters or confocal microscopes will dramatically increase the number of pos-
sible investigations, and in the very near future it will be possible to detect more
and more parameters at the single-cell level. With ¯ow cytometry and micros-
copy systems of high e½ciency and new speci®c probes, it will be of extreme
interest to combine the advantages of the cytometric approach with those of
molecular biology and to go deeper into the details of the biological processes
and mechanisms that regulate cell death and, in general, changes in cell func-
tionality during HIV infection.
Acknowledgments. The studies here described have been partially supported
by grants from Istituto Superiore di Sanit
Á
ÐProgramma Nazionale di Ricerca
sull'AIDS 1999ÐProgetto Patologia, Clinica e Terapia dell'AIDS (30C.22 and
34B.4 to A. Cossarizza, and by Azione Concertata ``Lipodistro®a'', grant
395.3). We gratefully acknowledge Drs. J. P. Robinson and G. Lawler (Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN) for comments and helpful discussion.
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