This article is part of the supplement: 2006 International Meeting of The Institute of Human Virology

Poster presentation

Lymphoproliferative responses to HIV-1 Gag p24 antigen and mitogens in HIV-1 subtype CRF01_AE infected Thai patients and HIV-1 seronegative donors

Thippawan Chuenchitra^1*, Suchitra Sukwit¹, Pittapun Chaitaveep¹, Mark S de Souza^1,2, Silvia R Kim^1,3, Robert M Paris^1,2 and Sorachai Nitayaphan¹

• * Corresponding author: Thippawan Chuenchitra

Author Affiliations

¹ Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, Bangkok, Thailand

² US Military HIV Research Program, Rockville, USA

³ Hawaii AIDS Clinical Research Program, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii

For all author emails, please log on.

Retrovirology 2006, 3(Suppl 1):P13 doi:10.1186/1742-4690-3-S1-P13

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at:

Published:

21 December 2006

© 2006 Chuenchitra et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Background

Lymphocyte proliferation assay has been the standard assay to assess CD4+ T cell function. To determine lymphoproliferative responses (LPR) to HIV-1 p24 and mitogens of PBMC from HIV-1 subtype CRF01_AE infected Thai patients compared with PBMC from HIV-1 seronegative donors.

Methods

Frozen PBMC from 8 HIV-1 infected Thai patients and 8 HIV-seronegative donors were tested and compared for LPR to multiple concentrations of HIV-1 p24 antigen, phytohemagglutinin (PHA), and pokeweed mitogen (PWM). HIV-1 infected patients were grouped by the presence of CD4+ counts > 350 [mean = 483.5 cell/mm3, n = 2 (group A)] or CD4+ counts < 350 [median = 75.5 cells/mm3, n = 6 (group B)]. A stimulation index > 5 was considered a positive LPR.

Results

Both HIV-1 infected patients and HIV-seronegative donors Thai demonstrated positive LPR to PHA and PWM (8/8, 100%). LPR to HIV-1 p24 were seen only patients in group A (100%, 2/2), not in group B (0%, 0/6). This difference was significant (Chi-square test = 11.0, p = 0.0357).

Conclusion

This result suggests that CD4+ T cells in HIV-1 subtype CRF01_AE infected Thai patients with CD4+ counts >350 cells/mm3 have ability to proliferate in response to HIV-1 p24 and indicate they remained the good CD4+ T cell function.