Mechanisms of HIV non-progression; robust and sustained CD4+ T-cell proliferative responses to p24 antigen correlate with control of viraemia and lack of disease progression after long-term transfusion-acquired HIV-1 infection

Dyer, Wayne B; Zaunders, John J; Yuan, Fang Fang; Wang, Bin; Learmont, Jennifer C; Geczy, Andrew F; Saksena, Nitin K; McPhee, Dale A; Gorry, Paul R; Sullivan, John S

Amino acid sequences of the HLA B27 restricted Gag epitope KRWIILGLNK) Figure 7 Amino acid sequences of the HLA B27 restricted Gag epitope KRWIILGLNK). epitope, and that there were no immune escape sequences detected at this epitope, it is likely that the decline in the p24-specific proliferative response was the key event that contributed to the failure of CTL to control viraemia, as it is understood that CTL have much reduced functional efficiency in containing viraemia in the absence of helper T cell responses [24] . Another study of HLA B57 positive individuals found no association between disease progression and the strength of CTL responses or the emergence of viral escape mutants at these epitopes, but it was found that viral replicative fitness influenced disease course [36] . The contribution of p24-specific proliferative responses was not investigated in that study.