Influenza vaccination can broadly activate the HIV reservoir during antiretroviral therapy

A Christensen-Quick, A Chaillon, C Yek… - JAIDS Journal of …, 2018 - journals.lww.com
A Christensen-Quick, A Chaillon, C Yek, F Zanini, P Jordan, C Ignacio, G Caballero…
JAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, 2018journals.lww.com
INTRODUCTION A major obstacle to an HIV cure is a persistent subset of quiescent,
infected cells, known as the latent reservoir. 1-3 Proviruses in their quiescent state remain
undetected by the immune system and impervious to antiretroviral therapy (ART). 4, 5 On
ART interruption, these proviruses can quickly resume viral replication. 6-9 One unmet need
is a means to safely and effectively unmask these infected cells in the setting of ART.
Multiple latency-reversing agents have been investigated for this purpose, but none has yet …
INTRODUCTION A major obstacle to an HIV cure is a persistent subset of quiescent, infected cells, known as the latent reservoir. 1-3 Proviruses in their quiescent state remain undetected by the immune system and impervious to antiretroviral therapy (ART). 4, 5 On ART interruption, these proviruses can quickly resume viral replication. 6-9 One unmet need is a means to safely and effectively unmask these infected cells in the setting of ART. Multiple latency-reversing agents have been investigated for this purpose, but none has yet demonstrated the ability to significantly reduce the size of the latent reservoir, and most have significant safety concerns. 10-14 We recently reported that clinical vaccines administered to people living with HIV can induce cellular HIV RNA expression during virally suppressive ART. 15 In that study, vaccination was associated with increased immune activation and enhanced HIV-specific responses. However, it remains unknown how vaccine-specific immune responses correlate with HIV activation and whether standard vaccines induce HIV expression selectively from a small pool of antigenspecific, activated HIV-infected cells, or nonselectively, that is, from a broad pool of bystander-activated HIV-infected cells. Here, we used deep sequencing to characterize HIV reactivation after a standard influenza vaccination in a group of 7 people living with HIV who were virally suppressed with ART.
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins