Abstract
Background:Chronic immune activation is a feature of HIV infection associated with accelerated HIV disease progression. There is conflicting data on the association of biomarkers of immune activation with traditional markers of HIV disease progression; CD4 counts and viral load (VL).Objective:The study aimed to determine the association of biomarkers of immune activation; interferon (IFN)-γ-induced protein 10 (IP-10) and soluble cluster of differentiation 14 (sCD14) in chronic HIV infection with traditional markers of HIV disease progression.Methods:We collected demographic data, enumerated CD4 counts and quantified VL in 183 antiretroviral therapy (ART)-naive adults with chronic HIV infection. Plasma concentrations of IP-10 and sCD14 were quantified in the ART-naive adults with chronic HIV infection and 75 HIV-uninfected controls.Results:IP-10 concentrations were significantly higher in the HIV-infected group (median; 257.40pg/ml, IQR; 174.08-376.32) than in the HIV-uninfected (median; 86.19pg/ml, IQR; 67.70-116.39) (P<0.001). Similarly, sCD14 concentrations were significantly higher in the HIV-infected (median; 1.45µg/ml, IQR; 1.02-2.16) group than in the controls (median; 0.89µ/ml, IQR; 0.74-1.18) (P<0.001). High log10 IP-10 concentrations were positively correlated with high log10 viral loads (Spearman’s correlation coefficient [R]=0.21, P=0.003) and inversely correlated with low CD4 counts (R= -0.19, P=0.011). In contrast, log10 sCD14 was not significantly associated with either log10 viral loads (R=0.03, P=0.707) nor CD4 count (R=-0.04, P=0.568).Conclusion:We conclude that plasma sCD14 and IP-10 were elevated in the HIV-infected patients compared to HIV-uninfected individuals possibly due to on-going immune activation. In addition, plasma high concentrations of IP-10 but not sCD14 concentrations are associated with high VL and low CD4 count.
Highlights
Chronic immune activation is a feature of HIV infection that is associated with accelerated HIV disease progression [1]
We found IP-10 concentrations positively and negatively correlated to viral load (VL) and CD4 counts, respectively
Whilst our study focused on IP-10 and sCD14 because of their link to HIV status and markers of disease progression described in literature, some studies have profiled between 15 and 28 proteins and singled out elevated IP-10 concentrations to positively correlate with high VL and inversely correlate with low CD4 counts [1, 10, 12 - 14]
Summary
Chronic immune activation is a feature of HIV infection that is associated with accelerated HIV disease progression [1]. In non-human primates that do not progress to AIDS despite high simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) load, immune activation that follows infection is transient and often successfully reduced to pre-infection levels without intervention [2]. Immune activation tends to be chronic among non-human primates SIV and human HIV disease progressors, suggesting that immune activation may be the major vehicle behind disease progression. Chronic immune activation is a feature of HIV infection associated with accelerated HIV disease progression. There is conflicting data on the association of biomarkers of immune activation with traditional markers of HIV disease progression; CD4 counts and viral load (VL)
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