Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date. If HIV1 virus triggers an autoimmune disorder (e.g Diffuse Infiltrative Lymphocytosis Syndrome, PN) in the first couple of months after infection, could the production of antibodies be delayed signficantly by the immune system disorder such that it might take 6-12 months before antibodies are detected by Elisa testing?
I read somewhere in the HIVINSITE research that having an autoimmune disorder can delay autobody production. Also, if the virus quickly breaks the blood-brain barrier and hides in the brain and lymph nodes so that viral loads are undectable, does that also potentially delay the production of antibodies (since only small amounts of virus in the blood)??
Does age have any impact on autobody production (e.g. does someone in their 40's take longer to produce antibodies?)?
Thank you.
Marty Markowitz, M. D.
Clinical Director
Staff Investigator, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center
Associate Professor, Rockefeller University
This is a difficult question...
First, autoimmune disorders are a large category of inflammatory diseases in which the inciting agent is believed to be a "native" antigen....
They can affect difference arms of the immune system...
Often individuals with diseases such as SLE or RA are immunocompormised....most often due to the underlying treatments though sometimes also related to their disease.
HIV infection per se is NOT an autoimmune disease though there are aspects of the disease that appear similar to autoimmune phenomena.
Fail to seroconvert is NOT a characterisitic of HIV infection and actually the antibody arm of the immune system may be "hyper-reactive" as the disease progresses...
When HIV infects there is a large amount of antigen present....virus is broken down to component parts and even if there is no "live" virus in tissue there is a lot of HIV specific antigens that stimulate an immune response...
Finally, does age have an effect on the immune response...the answer is yes..... however, older individuals can generate antibody responses unless they have complicating conditions... vaccines are recommended for conditions such as flu and pneumococcal disease in those over a certain age...and these vaccines protect via an antibody resonse...
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