Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

HIV

Bigger T-cell response not necessarily better

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 5, pages 88–89 (2007)Cite this article

The authors studied 578 HIV-infected adults from Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, who had not had any form of antiretroviral therapy. For each individual, human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing and quantification of plasma viral load were carried out, and the CD8+ T-cell response to a panel of overlapping peptides covering the entire sequence of HIV-1 clade C was assessed.

In general, T-cell responses specific for Gag epitopes were associated with lower levels of viraemia, whereas responses that were specific for epitopes of the viral envelope protein Env and the accessory and regulatory proteins (Rev, Tat, Vif, Vpr, Vpu and Nef) were associated with higher viral loads. This association between the targeted viral epitope and viral load held true for individuals expressing the same HLA-B allele, which shows that the protein targeted is more important than the restricting HLA allele in determining viral load. Also, whereas an increase in the number of targeted Gag epitopes significantly decreased viral load, an increase in the number of Env-specific responses led to an increase in viral load.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Kiepiela, P. et al. CD8+ T-cell responses to different HIV proteins have discordant associations with viral load. Nature Med. 17 December 2006 (doi:10.1038/nm1520)

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Senior Editor, Nature Reviews Immunology

    • Kirsty Minton
Authors
  1. Kirsty Minton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Minton, K. Bigger T-cell response not necessarily better. Nat Rev Microbiol 5, 88–89 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1604

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1604

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing