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“Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, Wellington, New Zealand Antiretroviral therapy (ART) suppresses HIV viraemia, thereby reducing
the antigenic drive for T cells to proliferate. Accordingly, selected HIV-specific T-cell responses have been described to contract within weeks of ART initiation. Here, we sought to investigate whether these findings apply to the entire repertoire of HIV-specific T cells. Using interferon (IFN)-γ enzyme linked immuno spot (ELISpot), we performed retrospective 2-year proteome-wide monitoring of HIV-specific T cells in 17 individuals with undetectable viral loads during ART. The sample pool for each study subject consisted of one pre-ART time-point and at
least two time-points after initiation of therapy. Peripheral pools of HIV-specific T cells decreased nonsignificantly within the first 2 years under ART in our cohort selleck products of patients, in terms of both breadth and magnitude. However, in most cases, the seeming decrease masked ongoing expansion of individual PARP activity HIV-specific T-cell responses. We detected synchronous contraction and expansion of T-cell responses – with different peptide specificities – in 12 out of 17 study participants during follow-up. Importantly, the observed expansions and contractions of individual HIV-specific T-cell responses reached similar ranges, supporting the biological relevance of our findings. We conclude that successful ART enables both contraction and expansion of HIV-specific T-cell responses. this website Our results should prompt a renewed interest in HIV-specific T-cell dynamics under ART, in particular to elucidate the mechanisms that uncouple, to some extent, particular HIV-specific
T-cell responses from variations in circulating antigen load and functionally characterize expanding/contracting T-cell populations beyond IFN-γ secretion. Assuming that expanding HIV-specific T-cell responses under ART are protective and functional, harnessing those mechanisms may provide novel opportunities for assisting viral control in chronically infected individuals. “
“Amino acid insertions in the protease gene have been reported rarely, and mainly in patients receiving protease inhibitors (PIs). The aim of the study was to assess the long-term viro-immunological follow-up of HIV-infected patients harbouring virus with protease insertions. Cases of virus exhibiting protease insertions were identified in routine resistance genotyping tests. Therapeutic, immunological and virological data were retrospectively collected. Eleven patients harbouring virus with a protease gene insertion were detected (prevalence 0.24%), including three PI-naïve patients. The insertions were mainly located between codons 33 and 39 and associated with surrounding mutations (M36I/L and R41K). The three PI-naïve patients were infected with an HIV-1 non-B subtype.