3rd International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment Rio de Janeiro - July 24 - 27, 2005

IMMUNODOMINANCE AND CROSS-RECOGNITION OF CD8+ T CELL REPONSES IN HIV-1-INFECTED CHINESE

IAS Conf HIV Pathog Treat 2005 Jul 24-27;3rd: Abstract No. TuPp0102

Kang W.¹, Yu X.G.², Zhai S.¹, Zhuang Y.¹, Wang S.¹, Li X.¹, Altfeld M.², Wu X.¹, Perkins B.A.², Walker B.D.², Sun Y.^1
1 Department of Infectious Diseases, Tangdu Hospital, Xi'an, China, ² Partners AIDS Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, United States of America

INTRODUCTION: China is a region of the world with a rapidly spreading HIV-1 epidemic. So far, it is estimated 840,000 people have been infected with HIV-1. Studies providing insights into HIV-1-specific cellular immune responses against different infecting clades in infected Chinese are urgently needed to support the design and testing of an effective HIV-1 vaccine for this population.

METHODS: HIV-1-specific T cell responses were characterized in 17 chronically HIV-1 infected Chinese, and HIV-1-specific T cell responses were characterized using a matrix system containing 820 overlapping peptides spanning the entire HIV-1 clade B and C consensus sequences in an IFN-γ ELISpot assay.

RESULTS: All HIV-1 proteins were targeted and all study subjects recognized at least one overlapping peptide. Gag and Nef were the most frequently targeted proteins. HIV-1-specific T cell responses clustered in 42 overlapping peptides by using HIV-1 clade B and C sequences respectively, with 36 same targeting peptides, 14 out of which had exactly the same sequences in clade B and C. In those 31 peptides differentially recognized in clade B and C, only 6 of them had the same sequence in both clades. However there was no significant difference between clade B and C sequences in recognition frequency and magnitude of T cell responses against all HIV-1 proteins.

CONCLUSIONS: These studies indicate that the HIV-1-specific T cell responses cluster in Gag and Nef proteins, which is in line with previous studies in infected Caucasians and other ethnics. There are cross-recognition of CD8+ T cell responses between HIV-1 clade B and C. More detailed studies are needed to investigate the impact of HLA genetic background and infecting clades on the cellular responses in infected Chinese, however, it is promising to be able to design a vaccine covering the different strains circulating in China.

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050724
Basic | TuPp0102 |
HIV-specific cellular immunity

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