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

The main factor that differentiated LTNP from those that lost non-progressor status, was low or undetectable HIV viraemia (<100 copies/ml; p = 0.021), and low viraemia was associated with detectable p24 proliferative responses (p = 0.0047). Loss of non-progressor status was strongly associated with undetectable or declining p24 responses (p = 0.0047). The combination of detectable p24 proliferative responses and strong (>500 SFC/10 6 PBMC) Gag CTL responses was associated with low (<100 copies/ml) or undetectable viraemia (p = 0.032).