Human Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells Elicited Different Responses after Infection with Pathogenic and Nonpathogenic Junin Virus Strains

The arenavirus Junin virus (JUNV) is the etiologic agent of Argentine hemorrhagic fever. We characterized the JUNV infection of human peripheral blood-derived plasmacytoid dendritic cells (hpDC), demonstrating that hpDC are susceptible to infection with the C#1 strain (attenuated) and evenmore susceptible to infection with the P (virulent) JUNV strain. However, hpDC elic-ited different responses in terms of viability, activation, maturation, and cytokine expression after infection with both JUNV strains. The arenavirus Junin virus (JUNV) is the etiologic agent re-sponsible for Argentine hemorrhagic fever (AHF) (1). The pathogenesis of AHF is not completely understood (2, 3), al-though immune cells are among the main targets (2–4). Circulating human peripheral blood-derived plasmacytoid dendritic cells (hpDC) sense viral infections, responding with massive type I interferon (IFN-I) production (5, 6). They also have an assigned role in determining the outcome of some viral infec-tions (7, 8). We hypothesized that JUNV targets hpDC in order to modulate the host’s response. hpDC were isolated from the buffy coats of 14 donors by im