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 viral load. Viral load is another important indicator used to evaluate the severity of AIDS. Therefore, the present study also evaluated the association between the viral load and the frequencies of CD4 + T cells and CD8 + T cells positive for Arg I or iNOS in the peripheral blood and LNs. The association with the protein expression levels of Arg I and iNOS in the peripheral LNs were also examined. As shown in Fig. 7 , viral load was positively associated with the frequencies of Arg I positive CD4 + T cells and CD8 + T cells in the peripheral blood (r=0.495; P<0.01 and r=0.307; P=0.027, respectively), peripheral LNs (r=0.546; P<0.01 and r=0.458; P<0.01, respectively). However, the viral load was negatively associated with the frequencies of iNOS positive CD4 + T cells and CD8 + T cells in the peripheral blood (r=-0.735; P<0.01 and r=-0.757; P<0.01, respectively), peripheral LNs (r=-0.778; P<0.01 and r=-0.670; P<0.01, respectively). In terms of protein expression levels, the peripheral CD4 + T cell count was negatively associated with the protein expression of Arg I (r=-0.563; P<0.01; Fig. 8A ) and the viral load was positively associated with the protein expression of Arg I in the LNs (r=0.736; P<0.01; Fig. 8B ).