Abstract
BackgroundAlthough gut microbiota dysbiosis has been reported in HIV infected individuals recently, the relationship between the gut microbiota and immune activation in patients with different immune responses to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is still not well understood. Gut microbiota and immune activation were studied in 36 non-HIV-infected subjects (healthy controls) and 58 HIV-infected individuals, including 28 immunological responders (IR) and 30 immunological non-responders (INR) (≥500 and < 200 CD4+ T-cell counts/μl after 2 years of HIV-1 viral suppression respectively) without comorbidities.ResultsMetagenome sequencing revealed that HIV-infected immunological responders and immunological non-responders could not recover completely from the gut microbiota dysbiosis. At a 97% similarity level, the relative abundances of Fusobacterium, Ruminococcus gnavus and Megamonas were greater, whereas Faecalibacterium, Alistipes, Bifidobacterium, Eubacterium rectale and Roseburia were more depleted in the IR and INR groups than those in the healthy controls. Ruminococcaceae and Alistipes were positively correlated with nadir and current CD4+ T-cell counts, but negatively correlated with CD8 + CD57+ T-cell counts. Inflammation markers and translocation biomarkers (LPS) levels were positively correlated with the abundances of genera Ruminococcus and Fusobacterium but were negatively correlated with the genus Faecalibacterium. The relative abundances of Escherichia-Shigella and Blautia were significantly higher in the IR than those in the INR group. Escherichia-Shigella were negatively correlated with the CD4/CD8 ratio but positively correlated with the amount of CD8 + CD57+ T-cells. Roseburia and Blautia were negatively associated with nadir CD4+ T-cell and positively associated with CD8 + CD57+ T-cell counts.ConclusionsGut microbiota dysbiosis may be one of the factors contributing to different immune responses and treatment outcomes to HAART.
Highlights
Gut microbiota dysbiosis has been reported in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected individuals recently, the relationship between the gut microbiota and immune activation in patients with different immune responses to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is still not well understood
Life expectancy of individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has increased enormously and HIV infection has become a chronic disease that is manageable in the combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) era
This study speculate that the gut microbiota may be one of the factors contributing to different immune responses to HAART
Summary
Gut microbiota dysbiosis has been reported in HIV infected individuals recently, the relationship between the gut microbiota and immune activation in patients with different immune responses to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is still not well understood. Gut microbiota and immune activation were studied in 36 non-HIV-infected subjects (healthy controls) and 58 HIV-infected individuals, including 28 immunological responders (IR) and 30 immunological non-responders (INR) (≥500 and < 200 CD4+ T-cell counts/μl after 2 years of HIV-1 viral suppression respectively) without comorbidities. The HIV-infected individuals who fail to achieve normalization of CD4+ T-cell counts despite persistent virological suppression are considered as immunological non-responders (INR) [1], which are in contrast with immunological responders (IR) [2]. The INR were defined as patients whose absolute value of CD4+ T cells counts were less than 200 cells/μl after years of ART, 350 cells/μl were used as a cutoff value in the literature [6]. IR were defined as patients whose CD4+ T-cell counts were greater than 500 cells/μl after receiving ART for years
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