Reduced B cell frequencies in cord blood of HIV-exposed uninfected infants: an immunological and transcriptomic analysis.
Front Immunol
; 15: 1445239, 2024.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39295873
ABSTRACT
Introduction:
In the course of immune development, HIV-exposed uninfected (HEU) infants exhibit abnormal immune function and increased infectious morbidity compared to HIV-unexposed uninfected (HUU) infants. Yet the specific functional phenotypes and regulatory mechanisms associated with in-utero HIV and/or ART exposure remain largely obscure.Methods:
We utilized flow cytometry and RNA-seq technologies to conduct the immunological and transcriptomic profiling in cord blood from 9 HEU mother-infant pairs and 24 HUU pairs. On top of that, we compared the cord blood dataset with the maternal venous blood dataset to characterize unique effects induced by in-utero HIV and/or ART exposure.Results:
Flow cytometry immunophenotyping revealed that the level of B lymphocyte subsets was significantly decreased in HEU cord blood as compared to HUU (P < 0.001). Expression profiling-based cell abundance assessment, includes CIBERSORT and ssGSEA algorithm, showed a significantly reduced abundance of naive B cells in HEU cord blood (both P < 0.05), supporting the altered composition of B lymphocyte subsets in HEU. Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated suppressed innate immune responses and impaired immune regulatory function of B cells in HEU cord blood. Furthermore, through differential expression analysis, co-expression network analysis using WGCNA, and feature selection analysis using LASSO, we identified a 4-gene signature associated with HEU status. This signature effectively assesses B cell levels in cord blood, enabling discrimination between HEU and HUU infants.Discussion:
Our study provides the first comprehensive immunological and transcriptomic characterization of HEU cord blood. Additionally, we establish a 4-gene-based classifier that holds potential for predict immunological abnormalities in HEU infants.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
HIV Infections
/
Gene Expression Profiling
/
Fetal Blood
/
Transcriptome
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Infant
/
Male
/
Newborn
/
Pregnancy
Language:
En
Journal:
Front Immunol
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article