Cervical screening in HIV-positive women in the East of England: recent CD4 as the predictive risk factor.

This study examines the relationship between CD4 count and cervical cytological abnormality in HIV-positive women attending two district general hospital genitourinary medicine clinics in the East of England. It aims to determine whether the rate of cervical cytological abnormalities differs in HIV-positive women with CD4 count >350 cells/µl and those with CD4 count ≤350 cells/µl; and to compare the rates of abnormalities with that of the general population. We retrospectively reviewed data from a cross-sectional audit undertaken between December 2010 and December 2011 and analysed them using multivariable statistics. There was a significant association between recent CD4 count ≤350 cells/µl and cervical cytological abnormality (p < 0.001). A total of 6.3% of women with recent CD4 counts >350 cells/µl had abnormal cervical smear results, compared with 6.6% of the general population in the screening period 2010-11 and 7.2% of the general population in the screening period 2009-10. In our study population of women with recent CD4 counts >350 cells/µl, the proportions of mild, moderate and severe dysplasia were also similar to national figures. This raises important questions about the cost effectiveness of blanket annual screening for HIV-positive women.

Nef-specific CD8+ T cell responses contribute to HIV-1 immune control.

Recent studies in the SIV-macaque model of HIV infection suggest that Nef-specific CD8+ T-cell responses may mediate highly effective immune control of viraemia. In HIV infection Nef recognition dominates in acute infection, but in large cohort studies of chronically infected subjects, breadth of T cell responses to Nef has not been correlated with significant viraemic control. Improved disease outcomes have instead been associated with targeting Gag and, in some cases, Pol. However analyses of the breadth of Nef-specific T cell responses have been confounded by the extreme immunogenicity and multiple epitope overlap within the central regions of Nef, making discrimination of distinct responses impossible via IFN-gamma ELISPOT assays. Thus an alternative approach to assess Nef as an immune target is needed. Here, we show in a cohort of >700 individuals with chronic C-clade infection that >50% of HLA-B-selected polymorphisms within Nef are associated with a predicted fitness cost to the virus, and that HLA-B alleles that successfully drive selection within Nef are those linked with lower viral loads. Furthermore, the specific CD8+ T cell epitopes that are restricted by protective HLA Class I alleles correspond substantially to effective SIV-specific epitopes in Nef. Distinguishing such individual HIV-specific responses within Nef requires specific peptide-MHC I tetramers. Overall, these data suggest that CD8+ T cell targeting of certain specific Nef epitopes contributes to HIV suppression. These data suggest that a re-evaluation of the potential use of Nef in HIV T-cell vaccine candidates would be justified.

HLA-A*7401-mediated control of HIV viremia is independent of its linkage disequilibrium with HLA-B*5703.

The potential contribution of HLA-A alleles to viremic control in chronic HIV type 1 (HIV-1) infection has been relatively understudied compared with HLA-B. In these studies, we show that HLA-A*7401 is associated with favorable viremic control in extended southern African cohorts of >2100 C-clade-infected subjects. We present evidence that HLA-A*7401 operates an effect that is independent of HLA-B*5703, with which it is in linkage disequilibrium in some populations, to mediate lowered viremia. We describe a novel statistical approach to detecting additive effects between class I alleles in control of HIV-1 disease, highlighting improved viremic control in subjects with HLA-A*7401 combined with HLA-B*57. In common with HLA-B alleles that are associated with effective control of viremia, HLA-A*7401 presents highly targeted epitopes in several proteins, including Gag, Pol, Rev, and Nef, of which the Gag epitopes appear immunodominant. We identify eight novel putative HLA-A*7401-restricted epitopes, of which three have been defined to the optimal epitope. In common with HLA-B alleles linked with slow progression, viremic control through an HLA-A*7401-restricted response appears to be associated with the selection of escape mutants within Gag epitopes that reduce viral replicative capacity. These studies highlight the potentially important contribution of an HLA-A allele to immune control of HIV infection, which may have been concealed by a stronger effect mediated by an HLA-B allele with which it is in linkage disequilibrium. In addition, these studies identify a factor contributing to different HIV disease outcomes in individuals expressing HLA-B*5703.