Expression of arginase I and inducible nitric oxide synthase in the peripheral blood and lymph nodes of HIV-positive patients

ZHANG, NAICHUN; DENG, JIANNING; WU, FENGYAO; LU, XIANGCHAN; HUANG, LEI; ZHAO, MIN

Correlation between the expression levels of Arg I and iNOS, and CD4 + T cell counts. The CD4 + T cell count is an important clinical indicator of the progression of AIDS (23) . To investigate the effects of Arg I and iNOS on the progression of AIDS, the associations between the peripheral blood CD4 + T cell count and the frequencies of CD4 + T cells and CD8 + T cells positive for Arg I and iNOS were examined in the peripheral blood and peripheral LNs. The protein expression levels of Arg I and iNOS in the peripheral LNs were also evaluated. As shown in Fig. 6 , the peripheral CD4 + T cell count was negatively associated with the frequencies of CD4 + T cells and CD8 + T cells positive for Arg I in the peripheral blood (r=-0.393; P<0.01 and r=-0.527; P<0.01; respectively) and peripheral LNs (r=-0.326; P<0.01; and r=-0.292; P=0.036, respectively). However, the peripheral CD4 + T cell count was positively associated with the frequencies of iNOS + CD4 + T cells and CD8 + T cells in the peripheral blood (r=0.690; P<0.01 and r=0.604; P<0.01; respectively) and peripheral LNs (r=0.596; P<0.01 and r=0.611; P<0.01, respectively; Fig. 6 ).