Higher Type 1 Interferon Levels in Plasma of Asymptomatic HIV-2 than in HIV-1 Individuals - Advances in Infectious Diseases

AID > Vol.6 No.1, March 2016

Higher Type 1 Interferon Levels in Plasma of Asymptomatic HIV-2 than in HIV-1 Individuals ()

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DOI: 10.4236/aid.2016.61003 2,517 Downloads 3,670 Views Citations

Author(s)

Samuel V. Nuvor^1,2, Hilton Whittle^1,3, Sarah Rowland-Jones^1,4, Assan Jaye^1,5

Affiliation(s)

¹MRC Laboratories, Fajara, Banjul, The Gambia.
²School of Medical Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
³London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
⁴MRC Human Immunology Unit, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK.
⁵Hospital A. le Dantec, Laboratoire de Bacteriologie Virologie (LBV), Universite Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal.

ABSTRACT

A number of cytokines are secreted during HIV infection that enhances both innate and adaptive immune responses. Interferon-α/β/γ, IL-12, IL-15 and IL-18 have been found to contribute to the development, maturation, differentiation and function of NK and other immune cells. The levels of IFN-α/β/γ, IL-12, IL-15 and IL-18 were compared in the plasma of 90 HIV-1 infected and 90 HIV-2 infected subjects by ELISA or Cytometric Beads Array assays. The HIV-infected subjects were stratified according to CD4⁺ T cell counts into three groups: >500, 200 - 500 and <200 cells/ul, with 30 subjects in each group. Cytokine levels were also determined in the plasma of 50 HIV uninfected blood bank donors. Among the cytokines tested, IFN-α was found to be significantly increased in HIV-2 infected compared to HIV-1 infected subjects at high CD4⁺ T cell counts (p = 0.001). The levels of IFN-β were seen to differ between the two infections in patients from the category of medium CD4⁺ T cell counts: this was significantly increased in HIV-2 infected patients (p < 0.001) as well as compared to uninfected controls (p = 0.001). The levels of IFN-γ were similar at all the CD4⁺ T cell categories except for an increase in HIV-2 infected patients at low CD4⁺ T cell counts (p = 0.02). The levels of these cytokines were similar in all HIV-1 subjects. Also, the level of IL-12p70 was similar between the two infections but significantly higher in HIV-2 at low compared to medium CD4⁺ T cells categories (p = 0.047). Similar to IFN-γ and IL-12p70, the levels of both IL-18 and IL-15 were found to be significantly higher in HIV-2 infected patients compared to HIV-1 at low CD4⁺ T cell counts (p < 0.05). These data show that there is variability in the levels of innate cytokines at different stages of HIV infection but the finding of increased IFN-α in HIV-2 infected asymptomatic subjects is consistent with the high innate NK responses previously noted at this stage of infection.

KEYWORDS

Type I Interferon, HIV-I, HIV-2, Cytokines, Interleukins

Share and Cite:

Nuvor, S. , Whittle, H. , Rowland-Jones, S. and Jaye, A. (2016) Higher Type 1 Interferon Levels in Plasma of Asymptomatic HIV-2 than in HIV-1 Individuals. Advances in Infectious Diseases, 6, 15-23. doi: 10.4236/aid.2016.61003.

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