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Munusamy Ponnan S, Thiruvengadam K, Kathirvel S, Shankar J, Rajaraman A, Mathaiyan M, Dinesha TR, Poongulali S, Saravanan S, Murugavel KG, Swaminathan S, Tripathy SP, Neogi U, Velu V, Hanna LE. Elevated Numbers of HIV-Specific Poly-Functional CD8 + T Cells With Stem Cell-Like and Follicular Homing Phenotypes in HIV-Exposed Seronegative Individuals. Front Immunol 2021; 12:638144. [PMID: 33889151 PMCID: PMC8056154 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.638144] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2020] [Accepted: 02/12/2021] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
HIV-specific CD8+ T cells are known to play a key role in viral control during acute and chronic HIV infection. Although many studies have demonstrated the importance of HIV-specific CD8+ T cells in viral control, its correlation with protection against HIV infection remains incompletely understood. To better understand the nature of the immune response that contributes to the early control of HIV infection, we analyzed the phenotype, distribution and function of anti-viral CD8+ T cells in a cohort of HIV-exposed seronegative (HESN) women, and compared them with healthy controls and HIV-infected individuals. Further, we evaluated the in vitro viral inhibition activity of CD8+ T cells against diverse HIV-1 strains. We found that the HESN group had significantly higher levels of CD8+ T cells that express T-stem cell-like (TSCM) and follicular homing (CXCR5+) phenotype with more effector like characteristics as compared to healthy controls. Further, we observed that the HESN population had a higher frequency of HIV-specific poly-functional CD8+ T cells with robust in vitro virus inhibiting capacity against different clades of HIV. Overall, our results demonstrate that the HESN population has elevated levels of HIV-specific poly-functional CD8+ T cells with robust virus inhibiting ability and express elevated levels of markers pertaining to TSCM and follicular homing phenotype. These results demonstrate that future vaccine and therapeutic strategies should focus on eliciting these critical CD8+ T cell subsets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sivasankaran Munusamy Ponnan
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India.,Centre for Infectious Disease Research, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India
| | - Kannan Thiruvengadam
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India
| | - Sujitha Kathirvel
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India
| | - Janani Shankar
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India
| | - Akshaya Rajaraman
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India
| | - Manikannan Mathaiyan
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India
| | | | - Selvamuthu Poongulali
- Chennai Antiviral Research and Treatment Centre and Clinical Research Site (CART CRS), Infectious Diseases Medical Center, Voluntary Health Services (VHS), Chennai, India
| | | | | | - Soumya Swaminathan
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India
| | - Srikanth Prasad Tripathy
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India
| | - Ujjwal Neogi
- Division of Clinical Microbiology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Vijayakumar Velu
- Division of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory Vaccine Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States.,Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory School of Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States
| | - Luke Elizabeth Hanna
- National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Indian Council of Medical Research), Chennai, India
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