Department of HIV/STD Control and Prevention, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nanjing, China.
Front Immunol. 2021 Dec 16;12:792775. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.792775. eCollection 2021.
Natural killer (NK) cells are major effectors of the innate immune response and purported to play an influential role in the spontaneous control of HIV infection. In the present study, we compared the phenotypes of NK cells in the peripheral blood of three groups of subjects with chronic HIV-1 infection, HIV controllers, and healthy donors. The results showed that CD56/CD16 NK cell subsets decreased in chronic patients and remained unchanged in controllers. Notably, we found that people living with chronic HIV-1 infection had suppressed NKp80, NKp46, and NKG2D expressions on NK cells compared to healthy donors, while HIV controllers remained unchanged. In contrast, NKG2D expression was substantially higher in controllers than in chronic patients (M=97.67, p<0.001). There were no significant differences in inhibitory receptors KIR3DL1 and KIR2DL1 expressions. In addition, plasma cytokine IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-12showed higher levels in HIV controllers compared to chronic patients. Overall, our study revealed that, as compared to chronic patients, HIV controllers show an increased activating receptors expression and higher number ofCD56/CD16NK cell subset, with increased expression levels of plasma cytokines, suggesting that higher immune activation in controllers may have a key role in killing and suppressing HIV.
自然杀伤 (NK) 细胞是先天免疫反应的主要效应细胞，据称在 HIV 感染的自发控制中发挥重要作用。在本研究中，我们比较了三组慢性 HIV-1 感染患者、HIV 控制者和健康供体的外周血 NK 细胞表型。结果表明，慢性患者的 CD56/CD16 NK 细胞亚群减少，而控制者则保持不变。值得注意的是，我们发现与健康供体相比，慢性 HIV-1 感染患者的 NK 细胞上 NKp80、NKp46 和 NKG2D 的表达受到抑制，而 HIV 控制者则保持不变。相比之下，控制者的 NKG2D 表达明显高于慢性患者（M=97.67，p<0.001）。抑制性受体 KIR3DL1 和 KIR2DL1 的表达没有差异。此外，与慢性患者相比，HIV 控制者的血浆细胞因子 IFN-γ、TNF-α 和 IL-12 水平更高。总体而言，我们的研究表明，与慢性患者相比，HIV 控制者表现出更高的激活受体表达和更多的 CD56/CD16 NK 细胞亚群，以及更高的血浆细胞因子表达水平，这表明控制者中更高的免疫激活可能在杀伤和抑制 HIV 方面发挥关键作用。
