Immunobiology of human imunodeficiency virus infection

Abstract

After the discovery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and its role in the causation of most devastating epidemic acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), there has been an increasing trend to decipher the mechanism of infection and to understand why it cannot be controlled by our immune system. By evolution, our immune system has been empowered and enough trained to recognize, elicit immune response and remove antigens and pathogens from the body. Simultaneously, HIV has also gained enough mechanism to escape the natural immune response. On one hand, it downregulates HLA class I antigens, which may present viral antigens to specific CD8 + T cells; on the other hand, the viral genome get mutated very readily under the selection pressure of specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes. The high mutation rate and convertibility of its genotype makes it a moving target and poses a prime hurdle in vaccine development. This review explains how HIV enters into the cell, how it resists the host immune response and how HIV manages to escape from it and establish in the human body.