14th International AIDS Conference Barcelona, Spain — July 7-12, 2002

Int Conf AIDS. 2002 Jul 7-12;14:Abstract No. MoOrB1130

BACKGROUND: HIV-specific CD8+ T cells play a major role in the containment of HIV replication and disease progression. We previously showed that the presence of HIV-specific CTL in the peripheral blood of perinatally infected children during the first year of age is associated with a less severe disease course. The present study addresses the role of the HIV-specific response in children over five year of age.

METHODS: 43 perinatally HIV-infected children, with a median age of 10 years (5-15.8), not receiving HAART were studied. Cytolytic activities of their PBMC following non-specific stimulation and in vitro culture with IL-2 was assessed in a chromium release assay against autologous B cell lines infected with recombinant Vaccinia viruses encoding the HIV-1 Env, Gag, Pol, and Nef proteins.

RESULTS: Using the Spearman rank test, we found that Gag and Pol-specific CTL were inversely correlated with plasma viral load (p<0.006 and p<0.05, respectively) and positively correlated with absolute CD4+ T cell numbers (p<0.006 and p<0.002, respectively). Env-specific CTL were positively correlated with CD8+ T cell numbers (p<0.02), and no correlation was found between Nef-specific CTL and biological parameters of HIV-infection.

CONCLUSIONS: After the age of 5, the CTL response of HIV-infected children appears to control viral replication as efficiently as that of infected adults.

Presenting author: Florence Buseyne

1Institut Pasteur, Laboratoire d'Immunopathologie virale, Bâtiment SIDA et Retrovirus, Institut Pasteur, 28, rue du Dr Roux, 75015 Paris, France.

2INSERM U292, Le kremlin-Bicêtre, France.

3Hopital Necker, Paris, France.

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