Higher HIV-1 Env gp120-Specific Antibody-Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity (ADCC) Activity Is Associated with Lower Levels of Defective HIV-1 Provirus

Abstract

A cure for HIV-1 (HIV) remains unrealized due to a reservoir of latently infected cells that persist during antiretroviral therapy (ART), with reservoir size associated with adverse health outcomes and inversely with time to viral rebound upon ART cessation. Once established during ART, the HIV reservoir decays minimally over time; thus, understanding factors that impact the size of the HIV reservoir near its establishment is key to improving the health of people living with HIV and for the development of novel cure strategies. Yet, to date, few correlates of HIV reservoir size have been identified, particularly in pediatric populations. Here, we employed a cross-subtype intact proviral DNA assay (CS-IPDA) to quantify HIV provirus between one- and two-years post-ART initiation in a cohort of Kenyan children (n = 72), which had a median of 99 intact (range: 0–2469), 1340 defective (range: 172–3.84 × 104), and 1729 total (range: 178–5.11 × 104) HIV proviral copies per one million T cells. Additionally, pre-ART plasma was tested for HIV Env-specific antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) activity. We found that pre-ART gp120-specific ADCC activity inversely correlated with defective provirus levels (n = 68, r = −0.285, p = 0.0214) but not the intact reservoir (n = 68, r = −0.0321, p-value = 0.800). Pre-ART gp41-specific ADCC did not significantly correlate with either proviral population (n = 68; intact: r = −0.0512, p-value = 0.686; defective: r = −0.109, p-value = 0.389). This suggests specific host immune factors prior to ART initiation can impact proviruses that persist during ART.

The development, evaluation, performance, and validation of micro-PCR and extractor for the quantification of HIV-1 &-2 RNA

“…Therefore, developing new-generation, dual-target nucleic acid testing (NAT) assays is an essential step for improving the accuracy of HIV assays and limiting the risk of under-quantification 8 . These new assays must accurately detect and quantify HIV-1/2 RNA in samples, exhibit a lower limit of detection (LLOD) and lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) values comparable with the currently available tests, and show good analytical performance 23 . A susceptible, specific, and robust micro-PCR device for quantification, targeting the detection of both HIV-1 and HIV-2, has been developed that can simultaneously determine viral load in HIV infected individuals.…”