Effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy on viral reservoir in peripheral blood lymphocytes of HIV infections

Objective To explore the difference of HIV-1 latent reservoir in peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets of HIV-1 infected patients receiving HAART and HAART-naive. Methods The peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of HIV-1 infected patients were collected and isolated from 21 cases with HAART-naive and 22 cases with HAART. The CD4+T lymphocytes, CD8+T lymphocytes and non-T lymphocyte subsets in PBMCs were sorted by magnetic bead cell sorting. HIV-1 RNA in peripheral blood and HIV-1 integrated DNA in above three lymphocyte subsets were detected by high-sensitive real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR and Alu-PCR, respectively. CD3+, CD4+, CD8+T lymphocyte numbers were counted by flow cytometry. Results The difference between HIV-1 integrated DNA of non-T lymphocytes in the two groups had statistical significance (Z=-3.326, P 0.05) . In HAART-naive group, HIV-1 integrated DNA in CD4+T lymphocytes had a positive correlation with HIV-1 RNA in peripheral blood (r=0.594, P 0.05) . There was no correlation among HIV-1 integrated DNA in CD8+T lymphocytes and non-T lymphocytes, CD4+T and CD8+T lymphocyte counts and CD4+/CD8+ ratio (P all > 0.05) . There was no correlation among HIV-1 integrated DNA in the T lymphocytes of HAART group, CD4+ T and CD8+ T lymphocyte counts and CD4+/CD8+ ratio (P all > 0.05) . Conclusions HIV-1 latent reservoir mainly exists in peripheral blood CD4+ T lymphocytes, with a small amount in peripheral blood CD8+ T lymphocytes and non-T lymphocytes. HAART may not reduce the amount of HIV-1 latent reservoir in T lymphocytes. Key words: HIV-1; Viral latent reservoir; HAART; Lymphocytes