Frontiers in Immunology (May 2022)

CCL5-Secreting Virtual Memory CD8+ T Cells Inversely Associate With Viral Reservoir Size in HIV‐1−Infected Individuals on Antiretroviral Therapy

  • Wei Hu,
  • Wei Hu,
  • Yan-Jun Li,
  • Cheng Zhen,
  • You-Yuan Wang,
  • You-Yuan Wang,
  • Hui-Huang Huang,
  • Jun Zou,
  • Yan-Qing Zheng,
  • Gui-Chan Huang,
  • Si-Run Meng,
  • Jie-Hua Jin,
  • Jing Li,
  • Ming-Ju Zhou,
  • Yu-Long Fu,
  • Peng Zhang,
  • Xiao-Yu Li,
  • Tao Yang,
  • Xiu-Wen Wang,
  • Xiu-Han Yang,
  • Jin-Wen Song,
  • Xing Fan,
  • Yan-Mei Jiao,
  • Ruo-Nan Xu,
  • Ji-Yuan Zhang,
  • Chun-Bao Zhou,
  • Jin-Hong Yuan,
  • Lei Huang,
  • Ya-Qin Qin,
  • Feng-Yao Wu,
  • Ming Shi,
  • Fu-Sheng Wang,
  • Fu-Sheng Wang,
  • Fu-Sheng Wang,
  • Chao Zhang,
  • Chao Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.897569
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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Recent studies highlighted that CD8+ T cells are necessary for restraining reservoir in HIV-1-infected individuals who undergo antiretroviral therapy (ART), whereas the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here, we enrolled 60 virologically suppressed HIV-1-infected individuals, to assess the correlations of the effector molecules and phenotypic subsets of CD8+ T cells with HIV-1 DNA and cell-associated unspliced RNA (CA usRNA). We found that the levels of HIV-1 DNA and usRNA correlated positively with the percentage of CCL4+CCL5- CD8+ central memory cells (TCM) while negatively with CCL4-CCL5+ CD8+ terminally differentiated effector memory cells (TEMRA). Moreover, a virtual memory CD8+ T cell (TVM) subset was enriched in CCL4-CCL5+ TEMRA cells and phenotypically distinctive from CCL4+ TCM subset, supported by single-cell RNA-Seq data. Specifically, TVM cells showed superior cytotoxicity potentially driven by T-bet and RUNX3, while CCL4+ TCM subset displayed a suppressive phenotype dominated by JUNB and CREM. In viral inhibition assays, TVM cells inhibited HIV-1 reactivation more effectively than non-TVM CD8+ T cells, which was dependent on CCL5 secretion. Our study highlights CCL5-secreting TVM cells subset as a potential determinant of HIV-1 reservoir size. This might be helpful to design CD8+ T cell-based therapeutic strategies for cure of the disease.

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