Virological and immunological study of HIV-1 infected individuals in different stages of infection

Objective To analyze HIV viral loads and immunological changes of HIV-1 infected individuals in different stages of infection and investigate their role in disease development.Methods Viral load,T cell subsets and Th1/Th2 cytokine concentration from 20 normal control subjects,38 asymptomatic HIV infected individuals,24 symptomatic HIV infected individuals and 21 AIDS patients were detected by NASBA,FCM and quantitative ELISA respectively.Results Asymptomatic HIV infected individuals,symptomatic HIV infected individuals and AIDS patients in different stages of infection had different viral loads,and the differences were significant among these three groups(P0.01).Viral loads in AIDS patients(6.04±0.28log/ml)were higher than in asymptomatic HIV infected persons(3.84±0.26log/ml).CD~+_4 cell number,CD~+_4/CD~+_8 ratio and IL2 in three groups were less normal than in control subjects significantly(P0.01),but concentration of plasma IL4 and IL10 of Th2 were higher than in normal subjects(P0.01).Furthermore,a significant reverse linear correlation was observed in viral loads between different groups.Correlation analysis revealed a highly linear negative correlation between HIV-RNA and CD~+_4 cell number,CD~+_4/CD~+_8 ratio,between IL2 and IL4,IL10,between IL4 and IFN-r and CD~+_4(P0.001);and significant linear positive correlation was observed between HIV-RNA and IL4,between IL4 and IL10,between CD~+_4 and CD~+_8,between CD_4/CD_8 and IL2,between IL2 and IFN-r and between IL4 and IL10(P0.001).Conclusion These results suggest that virological and immunological conditions of HIV-1 infected individuals in different stages of infection were significantly different;increase of HIV viral load and declining of CD~+_4 cell counts and plasma IL2 level predict disease development,so they can provided data for clinical stages and disease prognoses and treatment.