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Effect of HIV on production of anti-viral factors by HIV-specific CD4+ T cells

Background

CD4+ T cells are critical for effective immune responses against HIV, but these cells are targeted by the virus. Here we evaluated the capacity of HIV-specific CD4+ T cells to produce IFN-y and -chemokines and how they were affected by HIV infection.

Materials and methods

HIV gp120-specific CD4+ T cell lines (PS01 and PS02) were generated from PBMCs of HIV+ patients. Intracellular staining and ELISA were used to detect IFN-y, -chemokines, and virus infection.

Results

The CD4+ T cells produced IFN-y and MIP-1a in response to gp120. Also detected were RANTES and MIP-1a, but not MDC (CCL22). The b-chemokines displayed potent inhibitory activities against R5-tropic HIV-1. After the cells were exposed to BX08 (an R5 subtype B HIV-1 primary isolate), the capacity of these cells to produce IFN-y and MIP-1a in response to gp120 was initially comparable with that of the unexposed control. But after 3–4 days of infection, the numbers of cells capable of producing IFN-y and MIP-1a decreased significantly, while the percentage of infected cells reached >80%.

Conclusion

HIV-specific CD4+ T cells are susceptible to HIV. HIV reduces the capacity of the cells to produce IFN-y and b-chemokines. On-going efforts to enhance HIV-specific CD4+ T cell resistance against the virus will be presented.

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Correspondence to Catarina Hioe.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Hioe, C., Kaur, G., Cohen, S. et al. Effect of HIV on production of anti-viral factors by HIV-specific CD4+ T cells. Retrovirology 3 (Suppl 1), P25 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-3-S1-P25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-3-S1-P25

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