AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, July 9, 2001
Michael Greer, Staff Medical Writer

NewsRx - Highly active antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection improves the number of circulating cytotoxic T lymphocyte subsets, immunologists report.

Stefan Kostense and colleagues from institutions in the Netherlands and the United States performed a study to "evaluate dynamics in CD8 T-cell expansions during highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)." The results of their research were published in the journal AIDS.

HAART induces rapid perturbations in the dominant CD8 cell subsets, which markedly increases the overall diversity of the CD8 arsenal, Kostense and coworkers found.

The researchers examined the patterns of T-cell receptor (TCR) complementarity determining region 3 (CDR3) in CD8⁺ T lymphocytes. Immediately after the initiation of antiretroviral therapy, the dynamics of CD8 cell expansions were accelerated in both the overall CD8 population and the CD45RO⁺CD27⁺ and CD45RO^-CD27⁺ subsets, they said. While this quickly improved TCR CDR3 clonality, the effect of HAART dropped off markedly after a few months of treatment.

Kostense and research team observed several dominant patterns of CDR3 expansion in lymph node CD8 and CD4 cells prior to the beginning of HAART. Early in the course of antiretroviral therapy, they saw these same patterns in peripheral blood T cells and suggested that recirculation of lymph node T cells may be a factor in the early recovery of these cells during HAART.

The drop in clonal expansion after several months of antiretroviral therapy was attributed to reduced immune activation although repopulation of naive T cells may have also played a role ("T-cell expansions in lymph nodes and peripheral blood in HIV 1 infected individuals: Effect of antiretroviral therapy," AIDS, June 2001;15(9):1097-1107).

"HAART induces substantial changes in CD8 TCR diversity, eventually resulting in improvement of the repertoire," Kostense and colleagues concluded.

The corresponding author for this report is Stefan Kostense, MD, Dept. of Clinical Viro-Immunology, Centraal Laboratorium van de Bloedtransfusiedienst (CLB), P.O. Box 9190, 1006 AD Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Key points reported in this study include:

• Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for HIV infection improves the number of circulating cytotoxic T lymphocyte subsets
  
  
• HAART initiation quickly accelerated CD8 cell clonal expansions, resulting in an improvement in the diversity of the CD8 repertoire
  
  
• This acceleration in CD8 expansion dynamics died down within a few months, however, as immune activation decreased
  

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

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