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Distortion of memory Vδ2 γδ T cells contributes to immune dysfunction in chronic HIV infection

Cellular & Molecular Immunology volume 12, pages 604–614 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

γδ T cells play important roles in innate immunity as the first-line of defense against infectious diseases. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection disrupts the balance between Vδ1 T cells and Vδ2 T cells and causes dysfunction among γδ T cells. However, the biological mechanisms and clinical consequences of this disruption require further investigation. In this study, we performed a comprehensive analysis of phenotype and function of memory γδ T cells in cohorts of Chinese individuals with HIV infection. We found a dynamic change in memory Vδ2 γδ T cells, skewed toward an activated and terminally differentiated effector memory phenotype TEMRA Vδ2 γδ T cell, which may account for the dysfunction of Vδ2 γδ T cells in HIV disease. In addition, we found that IL-17-producing γδ T cells were significantly increased in HIV-infected patients with fast disease progression and positively correlated with HLA-DR+ γδ T cells and CD38+HLA-DR+ γδ T cells. This suggests the IL-17 signaling pathway is involved in γδ T-cell activation and HIV pathogenesis. Our findings provide novel insights into the role of Vδ2 T cells during HIV pathogenesis and represent a sound basis on which to consider immune therapies with these cells.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Mega-Projects of National Science Research for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012ZX10001006), the Natural Science Foundation of China (30930083), the Ministry of Health (201302018) and the PUMC Scholarship for Dr Jianmin Zhang. We thank Dr Austin Cape for careful reading and comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Immunology, School of Basic Medicine, Peking Union Medical College & Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Beijing, China

    Zhen Li, Yu Hu, Lianxian Cui, Jianmin Zhang & Wei He

  2. Beijing Key Laboratory of AIDS, Center for Infectious Diseases, Beijing You'An Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China

    Yanmei Jiao & Hao Wu

  3. Beijing Institute of Liver Disease, Beijing You'An Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China

    Dexi Chen

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Correspondence to Wei He.

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Li, Z., Jiao, Y., Hu, Y. et al. Distortion of memory Vδ2 γδ T cells contributes to immune dysfunction in chronic HIV infection. Cell Mol Immunol 12, 604–614 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/cmi.2014.77

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