Ginaldi L, De Martinis M, D'Ostilio A, Di Gennaro A, Marini L, Quaglino D
Department of Internal Medicine, L'Aquila University, Italy.
Am J Clin Pathol. 1997 Nov;108(5):585-92. doi: 10.1093/ajcp/108.5.585.
To identify surface antigen changes that may contribute to the immune deficiency in infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), we quantified, by double-staining flow cytometry, the number of antigens of the main peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets from 30 HIV-positive persons and compared them with those of 19 HIV-negative healthy donors. Standard microbeads with different capacities to bind mouse immunoglobulins were used to convert the mean fluorescence intensity values into numbers of antigen molecules per cell, measured as antibody binding capacity. The level of expression of different lymphocyte antigens in HIV-infected patients differs from that seen in normal blood lymphocytes. Some of these surface markers are decreased, whereas others are increased, and their expression is modulated depending on the specific cell subset considered. The expression of CD3, CD4, and CD8 on T lymphocytes is significantly decreased; moreover, CD3 is down-regulated on activated and nonactivated T lymphocytes and on CD4 and CD8 cells. In contrast, the expression of CD2 on T cells is significantly increased. Natural killer cells exhibit down-regulation of CD7, normal levels of CD8 and CD56, and overexpression of CD2. Our results also identified, for most of these antigens, quantitative differences in membrane expression according to different disease stages, as assessed by the CD4 T-cell count. Quantitative flow cytometry therefore may provide useful insights into the lymphocyte functional defects characterizing HIV infection.
为了确定可能导致人类免疫缺陷病毒（HIV）感染免疫缺陷的表面抗原变化，我们通过双染色流式细胞术对30名HIV阳性患者主要外周血淋巴细胞亚群的抗原数量进行了定量，并将其与19名HIV阴性健康供者的抗原数量进行了比较。使用具有不同结合小鼠免疫球蛋白能力的标准微珠，将平均荧光强度值转换为每个细胞的抗原分子数量，以抗体结合能力来衡量。HIV感染患者中不同淋巴细胞抗原的表达水平与正常血液淋巴细胞中的不同。其中一些表面标志物减少，而另一些则增加，并且它们的表达根据所考虑的特定细胞亚群而受到调节。T淋巴细胞上CD3、CD4和CD8的表达显著降低；此外，CD3在活化和未活化的T淋巴细胞以及CD4和CD8细胞上均下调。相反，T细胞上CD2的表达显著增加。自然杀伤细胞表现出CD7下调、CD8和CD56水平正常以及CD2过表达。我们的结果还确定，对于这些抗原中的大多数，根据通过CD4 T细胞计数评估的不同疾病阶段，膜表达存在定量差异。因此，定量流式细胞术可能为表征HIV感染的淋巴细胞功能缺陷提供有用的见解。
