Abstract
Natural killer (NK) cells are major effectors of the innate immune response and purported to play an influential role in the spontaneous control of HIV infection. In the present study, we compared the phenotypes of NK cells in the peripheral blood of three groups of subjects with chronic HIV-1 infection, HIV controllers, and healthy donors. The results showed that CD56+/CD16- NK cell subsets decreased in chronic patients and remained unchanged in controllers. Notably, we found that people living with chronic HIV-1 infection had suppressed NKp80, NKp46, and NKG2D expressions on NK cells compared to healthy donors, while HIV controllers remained unchanged. In contrast, NKG2D expression was substantially higher in controllers than in chronic patients (M=97.67, p<0.001). There were no significant differences in inhibitory receptors KIR3DL1 and KIR2DL1 expressions. In addition, plasma cytokine IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-12showed higher levels in HIV controllers compared to chronic patients. Overall, our study revealed that, as compared to chronic patients, HIV controllers show an increased activating receptors expression and higher number ofCD56+/CD16-NK cell subset, with increased expression levels of plasma cytokines, suggesting that higher immune activation in controllers may have a key role in killing and suppressing HIV.
Highlights
People infected with HIV-1 virus experience a short acute HIV infection period and enter an asymptomatic HIV-infected stage
Natural killer (NK) Cell Subsets and Expression of NK Cell Receptors. Both HIV controllers (7.92 ± 5.94) and chronic patients(7.70 ± 4.21) had higher levels of CD3-CD16+CD56- subset than healthy donors (4.51 ± 4.64) (P
NK cells play a vital role in the immune response against HIV infection
Summary
People infected with HIV-1 virus experience a short acute HIV infection period and enter an asymptomatic HIV-infected stage. While the viral load is undetectable with conventional assays in the elite controllers, viremic controllers decrease and present with low but detectable virus levels (less than 2000 copies RNA/mL) [2, 4]. The controllers cannot eradicate HIV-1, their immune systems exhibit extraordinary ability to control viral replication. The mechanism underlying this antiviral immunity remains unclear. Some data suggest that NK cells mediated response may contribute to the sustained viral control alongside traditional adaptive immune responses in some controllers [2, 5, 6]. Natural killer (NK) cells, which account for up to 15% of peripheral blood lymphocytes, are major effectors of the innate immune response [7, 8]. Recent data showed that NK cells might play an influential role in resistance against HIV [9, 10] and serve to control HIV infection in longterm non-progressors (LTNPs) [11, 12]
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