Department of Infectious Disease University G. D'Annunzio, Chieti, Italy.
Thromb Res. 2013 Mar;131(3):238-43. doi: 10.1016/j.thromres.2012.12.007. Epub 2013 Jan 4.
HIV infection is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. HIV-sustained impairment of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) could contribute to this process, so that it is important to assess whether antiviral therapy (ART) is able to revert these abnormalities.
We quantified in 21 naïves and 34 treated patients two functionally distinct clonogenic progenitors which have been acknowledged important for vascular repair: the hematopoietic progenitor colony forming unit - endothelial cells (CFU-EC) and the true endothelial progenitor, the endothelial colony forming cells (ECFC). We correlated results obtained with conventional vascular risk factors and with HIV-related parameters.
We found that these progenitors behaved differently in naive and treated patients. In particular, CFU-EC level was significantly low in all naive patients and slowly recovered during ART. In contrast, the ECFC level was abnormally high in naive patients while it decreased upon ART. The CFU-EC level was related to conventional cardiovascular risk factors, as reported in general population, but also to inflammatory indexes and CD4 cell count. In contrast, the ECFC number was exclusively related to viral replication activity and to CD4 cell count.
In HIV-infected people, the levels of CFU-EC and ECFC are related to classical cardiovascular risk factors but, in addition, they are also significantly influenced by the infection itself and by antiviral therapy.
HIV 感染是心血管疾病的一个独立危险因素。HIV 持续损害内皮祖细胞（EPCs）可能导致这种情况，因此评估抗病毒治疗（ART）是否能够逆转这些异常是很重要的。
我们在 21 名初治患者和 34 名治疗患者中定量检测了两种功能不同的克隆形成祖细胞，它们被认为对血管修复很重要：造血祖细胞集落形成单位-内皮细胞（CFU-EC）和真正的内皮祖细胞，即内皮集落形成细胞（ECFC）。我们将结果与常规血管危险因素和与 HIV 相关的参数相关联。
我们发现这些祖细胞在初治和治疗患者中的表现不同。具体来说，所有初治患者的 CFU-EC 水平均显著降低，并在 ART 期间缓慢恢复。相比之下，ECFC 水平在初治患者中异常升高，而在 ART 后则降低。CFU-EC 水平与常规心血管危险因素相关，如一般人群中报道的那样，但也与炎症指标和 CD4 细胞计数相关。相比之下，ECFC 数量仅与病毒复制活性和 CD4 细胞计数相关。
在 HIV 感染者中，CFU-EC 和 ECFC 的水平与经典心血管危险因素相关，但除此之外，它们还受到感染本身和抗病毒治疗的显著影响。
