Immune responses and HIV: a little order from the chaos

Abstract

HIV is evolution gone mad and bad. The virus infects a person and rapidly diversifies to become a huge swarm of viruses, each equipped differently to resist the onslaught of diverse T cells and antibodies. We can't expect to predict details of the struggle between virus and immunity, right? Wrong--maybe we can make some predictions, say two new landmark studies with potentially huge consequences for AIDS vaccine design.

Figure 1.

Initial sharing of HIV-specific CTL responses is largely lost by late-stage infection. Two sets of identical twins were infected with identical stocks of HIV. The twins followed by Draenert et al. and described in this issue of JEM (1) (Twins 1 and 2) were infected by intravenous drug use and were followed during the first 3 years of infection (A). Yang et al. (2) studied twins 3 and 4, who were infected by blood transfusion, during late-stage infection (B). CTL responses shared between both twins in each pair are shown as gray cells. CTL responses mounted only by one twin in each pair are colored pink.