AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, December 16, 2002
Michael Greer, Senior Medical Writer

"Impaired development of local Ab [antibody] responses may predispose HIV-1-infected patients to an increased rate, severity, and duration of mucosal infections," according to Ronald W. Scamurra and colleagues at the University of Minnesota and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis and the University of California at San Diego in La Jolla.

However, Scamurra and coauthors found only minor degradation of mucosal plasma cell repertoire in HIV patients.

The researchers evaluated the diversity of immunoglobulin (Ig)-producing cells in HIV patients' intestinal effector compartments. Seropositive patients were significantly deficient in colon, lumen, and duodenum IgA-producing cells compared with healthy controls, according to the report.

However, the low numbers of IgA-producing cells in HIV patients were mitigated by elevated levels of cells producing IgG or IgM, study data showed. Antibody V_H gene expression was comparably diverse in most HIV patients and controls.

Important to note is that the V_H gene repertoire in seropositive patients included normal amounts of V_H3 genes thought to bind the HIV coat protein gp120 (Mucosal plasma cell repertoire during HIV-1 infection. J Immunol 2002 Oct 1;169(7):4008-16.

"These data suggest that HIV-1-infected patients use functional regulatory mechanisms to provide sufficient V_H diversity and effective induction and differentiation of mucosal B cells," Scamurra and colleagues concluded.

The corresponding author for this report is Edward N. Janoff, University of Minnesota School of Medicine, Mucosal and Vaccine Research Center, Infectious Disease Sect. 111F, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 1 Veterans Dr., Minneapolis, MN 55417, USA. E-mail: janof001@tc.umn.edu.

Key points reported in this study include:

• Mucosal plasma cell diversity remains high during HIV infection

• Immunoglobulin A (IgA)-producing cell counts were low in seropositive patients

• However, this was mitigated by elevated levels of IgG- and IgM-producing cells

• Moreover, antibody V_H gene repertoire was not significantly affected by HIV infection

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

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