Microbiology & Immunology - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
-
ItemAn "Escape Clock'' for Estimating the Turnover of SIV DNA in Resting CD4+T Cells(PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 2012-04)Persistence of HIV DNA presents a major barrier to the complete control of HIV infection under current therapies. Most studies suggest that cells with latently integrated HIV decay very slowly under therapy. However, it is much more difficult to study the turnover and persistence of HIV DNA during active infection. We have developed an "escape clock" approach for measuring the turnover of HIV DNA in resting CD4+ T cells. This approach studies the replacement of wild-type (WT) SIV DNA present in early infection by CTL escape mutant (EM) strains during later infection. Using a strain-specific real time PCR assay, we quantified the relative amounts of WT and EM strains in plasma SIV RNA and cellular SIV DNA. Thus we can track the formation and turnover of SIV DNA in sorted resting CD4+ T cells. We studied serial plasma and PBMC samples from 20 SIV-infected Mane-A*10 positive pigtail macaques that have a signature Gag CTL escape mutation. In animals with low viral load, WT virus laid down early in infection is extremely stable, and the decay of this WT species is very slow, consistent with findings in subjects on anti-retroviral medications. However, during active, high level infection, most SIV DNA in resting cells was turning over rapidly, suggesting a large pool of short-lived DNA produced by recent infection events. Our results suggest that, in order to reduce the formation of a stable population of SIV DNA, it will be important either to intervene very early or intervene during active replication.
-
ItemComparison of Influenza and SIV Specific CD8 T Cell Responses in Macaques(PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 2012-03-05)Macaques are a potentially useful non-human primate model to compare memory T-cell immunity to acute virus pathogens such as influenza virus and effector T-cell responses to chronic viral pathogens such as SIV. However, immunological reagents to study influenza CD8(+) T-cell responses in the macaque model are limited. We recently developed an influenza-SIV vaccination model of pigtail macaques (Macaca nemestrina) and used this to study both influenza-specific and SIV-specific CD8(+) T-cells in 39 pigtail macaques expressing the common Mane-A*10(+) (Mane-A01*084) MHC-I allele. To perform comparative studies between influenza and SIV responses a common influenza nucleoprotein-specific CD8(+) T-cell response was mapped to a minimal epitope (termed RA9), MHC-restricted to Mane-A*10 and an MHC tetramer developed to study this response. Influenza-specific memory CD8(+) T-cell response maintained a highly functional profile in terms of multitude of effector molecule expression (CD107a, IFN-γ, TNF-α, MIP-1β and IL-2) and showed high avidity even in the setting of SIV infection. In contrast, within weeks following active SIV infection, SIV-specific CD8(+) effector T-cells expressed fewer cytokines/degranulation markers and had a lower avidity compared to influenza specific CD8(+) T-cells. Further, the influenza specific memory CD8 T-cell response retained stable expression of the exhaustion marker programmed death-marker-1 (PD-1) and co-stimulatory molecule CD28 following infection with SIV. This contrasted with the effector SIV-specific CD8(+) T-cells following SIV infection which expressed significantly higher amounts of PD-1 and lower amounts of CD28. Our results suggest that strategies to maintain a more functional CD8(+) T-cell response, profile may assist in controlling HIV disease.