Evidence for rapid disappearance of initially expanded HIV-specific CD8~+ T cell clones during primary HIV infection

摘要

Down-regulation of the initial burst of viremia during primary HIV infection is thought to be mediated pre- dominantly by HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes, and the appearance of this response is associated with major perturba- tions of the T cell receptor repertoire. Changes in the T cell receptor repertoire of virus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes were analyzed in patients with primary infection to understand the failure of the cellular immune response to control viral spread and replication. This analysis demonstrated that a sig- nificant number of HIV-specific T cell clones involved in the primary immune response rapidly disappeared.