The authors declare no conflict of interest. Figure 6 Proposed contribution of HMGB1 to HIV persistence and dissemination. HIV disease progression is characterized by gut inflammation and consequently microbial translocation leading to the release of LPS in the bloodstream (1). Circulating LPS may induce active release of HMGB1 by innate cells, including macrophages and DCs (2) . Necrotic and apoptotic cells that accumulate during chronic HIV infection may also be a constant source of HMGB1 (3). HMGB1 activates DCs by signaling through the receptor RAGE or TLR4 if cooperate with TLR4 ligand LPS, thus triggering NF-kB activation (4) . This results in the release of HMGB1 (5) and proinflammatory cytokines (6) , and the triggering of HIV replication in mDCs (7). Trans-infection of HIV from mDCs to CD4 T cells involves HIV capture by DC-SIGN followed by its recruitment at the site of T-cell interaction (8) . This infectious synapse will lead to the productive infection of CD4 T cells (9) . Trans-infection of HIV can also be mediated by exocytosis of the HIV-1 particles captured by DCs. After endocytosis, the captured HIV-1 particles are targeted to a multi-vesicular endosomal body (MVB) in DCs (10) . Although some of the MVB-localized virus fraction is targeted to the lysosome and degraded to be further presented to TCR in the context of MHC molecules, fusion of MVB with the plasma membrane results in the release of virus particles along with exosomes (11) . Virus produced by infected CD4 T cells, DCs and macrophages spread the infection to the draining lymph nodes and other lymphoid tissue Evaluation of the Seeplex® Meningitis ACE Detection Kit for the Detection of 12 Common Bacterial and Viral Pathogens of Acute Meningitis BACKGROUND: Bacterial meningitis is an infectious disease with high rates of mortality and high frequency of severe sequelae. Early identification of causative bacterial and viral pathogens is important for prompt and proper treatment of meningitis and for prevention of life-threatening clinical outcomes. In the present study, we evaluated the value of the Seeplex Meningitis ACE Detection kit (Seegene Inc., Korea), a newly developed multiplex PCR kit employing dual priming oligonucleotide methods, for diagnosing acute meningitis. METHODS: Analytical sensitivity of the kit was studied using reference strains for each pathogen targeted by the kit, while it's analytical specificity was studied using the human genome DNA and 58 clinically well-identified reference strains. For clinical validation experiment, we used 27 control cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples and 78 clinical CSF samples collected from patients at the time of diagnosis of acute meningitis. RESULTS: The lower detection limits ranged from 10(1) copies/µL to 5×10(1) copies/µL for the 12 viral and bacterial pathogens targeted. No cross-reaction was observed. In the validation study, high detection rate of 56.4% was obtained. None of the control samples tested positive, i.e., false-positive results were absent. CONCLUSIONS: The Seeplex Meningitis ACE Detection kit showed high sensitivity, specificity, and detection rate for the identification of pathogens in clinical CSF samples. This kit may be useful for rapid identification of important acute meningitis-causing pathogens. Bacterial meningitis is an infectious disease with high rates of mortality and severe sequelae. Early identification of causative bacterial and viral pathogens is important to enable prompt and appropriate treatment and thereby prevent life-threatening clinical outcomes. Patients with suspected meningitis are generally prescribed antibiotics before hospital admission or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) collection for examination. However, the admin-istration of antibiotics may render it difficult to culture the causative bacteria, thereby impairing microbiological diagnosis [1, 2] . To counter this problem, alternative methods of molecular identification, including 16S/23S rRNA gene amplification followed by sequencing and real-time PCR, have been developed. However, the clinical application of such techniques is limited because of the presence of interfering bacterial or viral DNA, timeconsuming nature of these assays, and small number of detection channels available on the real-time PCR platform [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] .