Mullins James I, Rolland Morgane, Allen Todd M
Department of Microbiology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98195-8070, USA.
Curr Opin HIV AIDS. 2008 Jan;3(1):60-6. doi: 10.1097/COH.0b013e3282f233d9.
The ability of human immunodeficiency virus to mutate rapidly to evade host immune pressures is a key hurdle limiting the control of human immunodeficiency virus-1 by cellular immune responses. Viral escape from CD8 T-cell recognition continues to be studied extensively, and emerging data provide greater appreciation of the affect of these mutations on the virus. These data may help identify key immune responses capable of suppressing viral replication. This goal remains critical, as current vaccines are unlikely to produce protective T-cell immunity.
Recent studies provide greater understanding of the propensity for transmitted mutations to revert, and of the ability of CD8 T-cell escape mutations to impact viral replication capacity and protein structure. These observations reveal important constraints on virus evolution and sequence diversity. Data are also accumulating for the ability of the immune system to mount de-novo CD8 T-cell responses against escape variants, revealing an underappreciated complexity of the process of viral escape.
Understanding the limits of sequence variation and the impact of immune escape mutations on viral fitness, particularly during acute infection, will be critical to guide the design of contemporary vaccines or therapeutics attempting to force human immunodeficiency viruses to become less fit.
人类免疫缺陷病毒能够迅速变异以逃避宿主免疫压力，这是限制细胞免疫反应控制人类免疫缺陷病毒1型的关键障碍。病毒逃避CD8 T细胞识别的现象仍在被广泛研究，新出现的数据让人们对这些突变对病毒的影响有了更深入的认识。这些数据可能有助于识别能够抑制病毒复制的关键免疫反应。这一目标仍然至关重要，因为目前的疫苗不太可能产生保护性T细胞免疫。
最近的研究让人们对传播突变的回复倾向以及CD8 T细胞逃逸突变影响病毒复制能力和蛋白质结构的能力有了更深入的了解。这些观察结果揭示了病毒进化和序列多样性的重要限制。关于免疫系统针对逃逸变体产生全新CD8 T细胞反应能力的数据也在不断积累，这揭示了病毒逃逸过程中一个未被充分认识的复杂性。
了解序列变异的限度以及免疫逃逸突变对病毒适应性的影响，尤其是在急性感染期间，对于指导当代疫苗或治疗方法的设计至关重要，这些疫苗或治疗方法旨在使人类免疫缺陷病毒的适应性降低。
