Detection of clonal T cell populations with closely related T cell receptor junctional sequences in persons at high risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and in patients acutely infected with HIV

Abstract

The T cell repertoires were characterized for CD4+ and CD4 lymphocytes derived from 2 patients with acute human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and from 25 HIV-seronegative persons at high risk for acquiring HIV. Oligoclonal expansions of CD4 cells were detected in the HIV-infected patients and in 2 of 3 uninfected high-risk subjects with a reduced number of CD4+ lymphocytes. Furthermore, nucleotide sequencing revealed that some of the T cell receptor (TCR) beta variable segments (TCRBV), which were highly selected in the high-risk subjects, shared closely related junctional sequences, with the TCRBV predominantly expanded in the HIV-infected patients. Since the likelihood that these similarities occurred by chance is extremely low, these data provide direct molecular evidence in support of several cellular and serologic studies suggesting that some persons remain uninfected despite exposure to HIV.