HIV-1 protective epitope-specific CD8+ T cells in HIV-1-exposed seronegative individuals

Takayuki Chikata; Hiroyuki Gatanaga; Hung The Nguyen; Daisuke Mizushima; Yu Zhang; Nozomi Kuse; Shinichi Oka; Masafumi Takiguchi

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.108089

HIV-1 protective epitope-specific CD8⁺ T cells in HIV-1-exposed seronegative individuals

iScience. 2023 Sep 29;26(11):108089. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108089. eCollection 2023 Nov 17.

Authors

Takayuki Chikata¹, Hiroyuki Gatanaga², Hung The Nguyen¹, Daisuke Mizushima², Yu Zhang¹, Nozomi Kuse¹, Shinichi Oka², Masafumi Takiguchi¹

Affiliations

¹ Tokyo Laboratory and Division of International Collaboration Research, Joint Research Center for Human Retrovirus Infection, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto 162-0052, Japan.
² AIDS Clinical Center, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Shinjuku, Tokyo 162-8655, Japan.

Abstract

Although previous studies have reported HIV-1-specific T cell responses in HIV-1-exposed seronegative (HESN) individuals, there has been no detailed analysis of these T cells against HIV-1 infection. We investigated HIV-1-specific CD8⁺ T cell responses in 200 Japanese HESN men who have sex with men (MSM). T cell responses to 143 well-characterized HIV-1 epitope peptides were analyzed by intracellular cytokine staining assay consisting of 3-week cultures of PBMCs stimulated with peptides. HLA-B∗51:01-restricted Pol TI8-specific and HLA-A∗02:06-restricted Pol SV9-specific CD8⁺ T cells were identified in two and one individuals, respectively, whereas CD8⁺ T cells specific for other HLA-A∗02:06-restricted or HLA-B∗51:01 epitopes were not present in these individuals. These epitope-specific T cells recognized HIV-1-infected cells. Because these two epitopes were previously reported to be protective in HIV-1-infected individuals, these protective epitope-specific T cells might suppress HIV-1 replication in HESN-MSM individuals. The present study suggests the contribution of protective epitope-specific T cells to protection against HIV-1 infection.

Keywords: Cell biology; Immune response.