Background: T-cell immunity is thought to play an important role in controlling HIV infection, and is a main target for HIV vaccine development. HIV-specific central memory CD8+ and CD4+ T cells producing IFNγ and IL-2 have been associated with control of viremia and are therefore hypothesized to be truly protective and determine subsequent clinical outcome. However, the cause-effect relationship between HIV-specific cellular immunity and disease progression is unknown. We investigated in a large prospective cohort study involving 96 individuals of the Amsterdam Cohort Studies with a known date of seroconversion whether the presence of cytokine-producing HIV-specific CD8+ T cells early in infection was associated with AIDS-free survival time. Methods and Findings: The number and percentage of IFNγ and IL-2 producing CD8+ T cells was measured after in vitro stimulation with an overlapping Gag-peptide pool in T cells sampled approximately one year after seroconversion. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazard models showed that frequencies of cytokine-producing Gag-specific CD8+ T cells (IFNγ, IL-2 or both) shortly after seroconversion were neither associated with time to AIDS nor with the rate of CD4+ T-cell decline. Conclusions: These data show that high numbers of functional HIV-specific CD8+T cells can be found early in HIV infection, irrespective of subsequent clinical outcome. The fact that both progressors and long-term non-progressors have abundant T cell immunity of the specificity associated with low viral load shortly after seroconversion suggests that the more rapid loss of T cell immunity observed in progressors may be a consequence rather than a cause of disease progression. © 2008 Schellens et al.
CITATION STYLE
Schellens, I. M. M., Borghans, J. A. M., Jansen, C. A., De Cuyper, I. M., Geskus, R. B., van Baarle, D., & Miedema, F. (2008). Abundance of early functional HIV-specific CD8+ T cells does not predict AIDS-free survival time. PLoS ONE, 3(7). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002745
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.