Sharma Tanvi S, Hughes Jane, Murillo Amarylis, Riley Joanne, Soares Andreia, Little Francesca, Mitchell Charles D, Hanekom Willem A
Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2008;3(12):e3986. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003986. Epub 2008 Dec 19.
Initiation and modification of antiretroviral therapy in HIV-infected children depend on viral load and CD4+ T-cell count. However, these surrogates have limitations, and complementary immunological markers to assess therapeutic response are needed. Our aim was to evaluate CD8+ T-cell expression of CD127 as a marker of disease status in HIV-infected children, based on adult data suggesting its usefulness. We hypothesized that CD127 expression on CD8+ T-cells is lower in children with more advanced disease.
In a cross-sectional evaluation, we used flow cytometry to measure CD127+ expression on CD8+ T-cells in whole blood from HIV-infected children with varying disease status. This was compared with expression of CD38 on this subset, currently used in clinical practice as a marker of disease status.
51 HIV-infected children were enrolled. There was a strong positive correlation between CD127 expression on CD8+ T-cells and CD4+ T-cell count, and height and weight z-scores, and a strong negative correlation between CD127 expression and viral load. In contrast, we found no association between CD38 expression and these disease status markers.
CD8+ T-cell CD127 expression is significantly higher in children with better HIV disease control, and may have a role as an immunologic indicator of disease status. Longitudinal studies are needed to determine the utility of this marker as a potential indicator of HIV disease progression.
HIV感染儿童抗逆转录病毒治疗的起始和调整取决于病毒载量和CD4+T细胞计数。然而，这些替代指标存在局限性，因此需要补充免疫标志物来评估治疗反应。基于成人数据提示其有用性，我们旨在评估CD8+T细胞上CD127的表达作为HIV感染儿童疾病状态的标志物。我们假设疾病进展更严重的儿童CD8+T细胞上的CD127表达更低。
在一项横断面评估中，我们使用流式细胞术测量不同疾病状态的HIV感染儿童全血中CD8+T细胞上CD127+的表达。将其与该亚群上CD38的表达进行比较，CD38目前在临床实践中用作疾病状态的标志物。
纳入了51名HIV感染儿童。CD8+T细胞上的CD127表达与CD4+T细胞计数、身高和体重z评分之间存在强正相关，与病毒载量之间存在强负相关。相比之下，我们发现CD38表达与这些疾病状态标志物之间没有关联。
HIV疾病控制较好的儿童CD8+T细胞CD127表达显著更高，其可能作为疾病状态的免疫指标发挥作用。需要进行纵向研究以确定该标志物作为HIV疾病进展潜在指标的效用。
