Multiparametric Immune Profiles and Their Potential Role in HIV-1 Disease Progression and Treatment.

Backgrounds: The rapid initiation of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) can control HIV-1 viremia and stabilize the long-term health of people living with HIV-1 (PLWH). Despite this, individuals who are diagnosed late and exhibit poor therapeutic efficacy still pose a great challenge to global HIV management. To address this, we conducted comprehensive multiparametric immune profiling and analyzed its association with disease progression and therapeutic efficacy.

Methods

Multicolor flow cytometry was used to characterize the circulating immune cell composition and cellular phenotypes in 40 treatment-naive individuals (16 chronic, 24 newly diagnosed), 26 HAART-treated individuals, and 18 healthy controls. Comparative analyses of T cell subsets, immune activation markers, and viral load signatures were performed, followed by network construction. We carried out principal component analysis and displayed the data by dimensionality reduction.

Results

Persistent immune activation, dysregulated regulatory immunity, and aberrant memory differentiation markers were identified in T cells of HIV-1-infected individuals and were associated with disease progression. Additionally, HAART-treated patients which did not fully restore CD4 T cells exhibited higher levels of activated markers, suggesting possible biomarkers of therapeutic efficacy.

Conclusions

This study describes changes in immune cell profiles throughout HIV-1 disease progression and explores suitable laboratory predictors for future clinical and therapeutic settings by monitoring pathological immune cell events.