Oxenius Annette, McLean Angela R, Fischer Marek, Price David A, Dawson Sarah J, Hafner Roland, Schneider Christine, Joller Helen, Hirschel Bernard, Phillips Rodney E, Weber Rainer, Günthard Huldrych F
Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK.
J Virol. 2002 Oct;76(20):10169-76. doi: 10.1128/jvi.76.20.10169-10176.2002.
There is a continuing search for better ways to use existing drugs against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). One idea is to use short therapy interruptions to "autovaccinate" HIV-infected patients. A group of 13 chronically HIV-infected patients enrolled in a trial of such so-called structured treatment interruptions (STIs) were intensively studied with respect to their viral load (VL) and HIV-specific CD8+ T-cell (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte [CTL]) responses. We found that 10 of the 13 patients had plateau VLs after STIs that were lower than their pretreatment VLs. While viral rebound rates became lower over STIs, there were no changes in clearance rates. Although numbers of CTLs did increase over the same time that viral rebounds decreased, there was no correlation between CTL count and either viral rebound rates or clearance rates. Finally, we asked whether absolute numbers of or changes in numbers of CTLs predict plateau VLs after STIs. No measure of CTLs was able to predict plateau VLs. Thus, there was no signature in these data of an important contribution to virological control from HIV-specific CD8+ T lymphocytes.
人们一直在寻找更好地使用现有抗人类免疫缺陷病毒（HIV）药物的方法。一种想法是利用短期治疗中断来对HIV感染患者进行“自体疫苗接种”。一组13名长期感染HIV的患者参与了一项所谓的结构化治疗中断（STIs）试验，研究人员对他们的病毒载量（VL）和HIV特异性CD8 + T细胞（细胞毒性T淋巴细胞[CTL]）反应进行了深入研究。我们发现，13名患者中有10名在STIs后的VL平台期低于其治疗前的VL。虽然在STIs期间病毒反弹率降低，但清除率没有变化。尽管在病毒反弹减少的同一时间内CTL数量确实增加了，但CTL计数与病毒反弹率或清除率之间没有相关性。最后，我们询问CTL的绝对数量或数量变化是否能预测STIs后的VL平台期。没有任何CTL指标能够预测VL平台期。因此，这些数据中没有迹象表明HIV特异性CD8 + T淋巴细胞对病毒学控制有重要贡献。
