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Relative reduction of plasmacytoid dendritic cells with shift in TH1 to TH2 response in HIV-1 infected patients as compared to high risk and healthy north Indians

Background

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen presenting cells and play a central role in both innate and adaptive immunity. A decrease in one or both subsets of DC has been reported in HIV-1 infected patients from different populations. The status of DC subsets in subjects at high risk for HIV-1 such as Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) has not been reported so far.

Methods

Blood samples from 15 healthy individuals, 15 IDU and 15 HIV-1 positive patients were collected and informed consent was obtained. Plasmacytoid and myeloid DCs were accessed by four-color flow cytometry. The plasma level cytokines and HIV-1 viral load were determined.

Results

We observed a significant decrease in the total DCs and pDCs population in HIV-1 infected patients (%DCs p = 0.0132, %pDCs p = 0.0281) and IDUs (%DCs p = 0.006, %pDCs (p>0.0001) as compared to healthy individuals. The plasma levels of IFN-γ was significantly lower while level of IL-10 was significantly higher in HIV-1 infected patients as compared to IDUs (p = 0.0062, for IFN- γ and p = 0.0071 for IL-10) and healthy subjects (p = 0.004 for IFN- γ and p = 0.0068 for IL-10).

Conclusions

This is the first study to characterize the dendritic cells subpopulations in IDUs who are at high risk for HIV-1 infection. Further longitudinal studies on the status of dendritic cell subpopulations and their correlation with the cytokine profile will enable the elucidation of the precise role of dendritic cells in HIV-1 infection.

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Correspondence to Kalpana Luthra.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Chaudhary, O., Bala, M., Singh, J. et al. Relative reduction of plasmacytoid dendritic cells with shift in TH1 to TH2 response in HIV-1 infected patients as compared to high risk and healthy north Indians. BMC Infect Dis 12 (Suppl 1), O20 (2012). https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1186/1471-2334-12-S1-O20

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  • DOI: https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1186/1471-2334-12-S1-O20

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