Use of well-defined HIV-derived epitopes to evaluate CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell responses in patients with chronic HIV-1 infection treated with HAART.
Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is associated with a dramatic clinical benefit to HIV-infected patients through significant plasma viremia reduction and CD4(+) T cells increase. In previous reports, HIV-specific CD4(+) and/or CD8(+) T cell responses have been studied separately during HAART; therefore the relationship between these two virus-specific populations is currently not well understood. In this study, both HIV-specific CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell responses were investigated using a large panel of well-defined T cell epitope peptides in 24 HIV-1-infected patients undergoing HAART, with undetectable viral load and CD4(+) T cell count >/= 350/mm(3). One-third of the patients had CD4(+) T cells able to proliferate when exposed to HIV-1 protein fragments but only two patients displayed polyclonal responses. In addition the majority (78%) of HAART-treated patients displayed no or monospecific CD8(+) T cell responses and the phenotypic analysis of these HIV-specific CD8(+) T cells demonstrated the absence of terminally differentiated effectors. In conclusion, the experimental approach used in this study shows that CD4(+) T cell responses may persist during HAART but are not associated with strong CD8(+) T cell responses
Department of Immunology, Cochin Institute, INSERM U567, CNRS UMR 8104, René Descartes University, Department of Internal Medicine, Cochin Hospital, Paris, France.
Nathalie
N
Daniel
Bénédicte
B
Charmeteau
Sophie
S
Grabar
Gilles
G
Pialoux
Dominique
D
Salmon
Nelly
N
Bonilla
Marion
M
Dupuis
Christelle
C
Troadec
Willy
W
Rozenbaum
Hanne
H
Gahéry-Ségard
Jean-Gérard
JG
Guillet
Muriel
M
Andrieu
D023241:Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active; D015496:CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D018414:CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D000939:Epitopes; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology* / Q000821:virology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D018655:Lymphocyte Count
D000939:Epitopes