Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2002 Nov 28;420(6914):434-9.
doi: 10.1038/nature01200.

HIV-1 superinfection despite broad CD8+ T-cell responses containing replication of the primary virus

Marcus Altfeld  1 , Todd M Allen, Xu G Yu, Mary N Johnston, Deepak Agrawal, Bette T Korber, David C Montefiori, David H O'Connor, Ben T Davis, Paul K Lee, Erica L Maier, Jason Harlow, Philip J R Goulder, Christian Brander, Eric S Rosenberg, Bruce D Walker
Affiliations

HIV-1 superinfection despite broad CD8+ T-cell responses containing replication of the primary virus

Marcus Altfeld et al. Nature. .

Abstract

Early treatment of acute HIV-1 infection followed by treatment interruptions has shown promise for enhancing immune control of infection. A subsequent loss of control, however, allows the correlates of protective immunity to be assessed. Here we show that sudden breakthrough of plasma viraemia occurred after prolonged immune containment in an individual infected with HIV-1 at a time when 25 distinct CD8+ T-cell epitopes in the viral proteins Gag, RT, Integrase, Env, Nef, Vpr, Vif and Rev were being targeted. Sequencing of the virus in plasma and cells showed that superinfection with a second clade-B virus was coincident with the loss of immune control. This sudden increase in viraemia was associated with a decline in half of the CD8+ T-cell responses. The declining CD8+ T-cell responses were coupled with sequence changes relative to the initial virus that resulted in impaired recognition. Our data show that HIV-1 superinfection can occur in the setting of a strong and broadly directed virus-specific CD8+ T-cell response. The lack of cross-protective immunity for closely related HIV-1 strains, despite persistent recognition of multiple CD8 epitopes, has important implications for public health and vaccine development.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

  • HIV: Bad news for stop--start therapy?
    McMichael AJ, Rowland-Jones SL. McMichael AJ, et al. Nature. 2002 Nov 28;420(6914):371, 373. doi: 10.1038/420371a. Nature. 2002. PMID: 12459769 No abstract available.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources