AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, July 14, 2003
Staff Medical Writers

"Cellular immune responses play a central role in controlling HIV-1 infection," researchers in the United States explained.

In a study conducted by V. Chitnis and coauthors at New York University, "HIV-specific IFN-gamma production by CD8 T cells was evaluated in 17 HLA-A2+ HIV-infected pediatric patients (age range one month to 16 years) in an ELISPOT assay."

"Most patients (15/17) exhibited responses to HIV gag, followed by responses to envelope gp120, gp41, and V3 loop," although "only seven patients responded to all four antigenic peptides," they found. "Treatment-related immune reconstitution of CD4 T cells was associated with increase in gag-specific responses, but these declined with prolonged viral suppression."

"Exogenous IL [interleukin]-15 resulted in augmentation of HIV gag-specific response in 71% of patients," study data showed, "while IL-2 and IL-7 had variable effects, augmenting responses in 25% patients."

"Thus, HIV-specific CD8 T-cell responses are dependent on both CD4 T-cell help and antigenic stimulation," the researchers concluded. "The cytokine IL-15 may be a useful modality as adjunctive therapy to augment HIV-specific memory CD8 T cells."

Chitnis and colleagues published their study in Clinical Immunology (Determinants of HIV-specific CD8 T-cell responses in HIV-infected pediatric patients and enhancement of HIV-gag-specific responses with exogenous IL-15. Clin Immunol. 2003 Apr;107(1):36-45.

For more information, contact S. Pahwa, NYU, School of Medicine, Immunology and Inflammation Center of Excellence, North Shore Long Island Jewish Research Institute, Manhasset, NY 11030, USA.

Publisher contact information for the journal Clinical Immunology is: Academic Press Inc., Elsevier Science, 525 B St., Ste. 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495, USA.

The information in this article comes under the major subject areas of AIDS and HIV and Immunology.

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

Reference

Chitnis V, Pahwa R, Pahwa S. "Determinants of HIV-specific CD8 T-cell responses in HIV-infected pediatric patients and enhancement of HIV-gag-specific responses with exogenous IL-15", Clin Immunol. 2003 Apr;107(1):36-45

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