CD4+CD8+ T Cells Represent a Significant Portion of the Anti-HIV T Cell Response to Acute HIV Infection

Previous studies have revealed that HIV infected individuals possess circulating CD4+CD8+ (DP) T-cells specific for HIV antigens. In the present study, we analyzed the proliferation and functional profile of circulating DP T-cells from 30 acutely HIV infected individuals and 10 chronically HIV infected viral controllers. The acutely infected group had DP T-cells which showed more proliferative capability and multifunctionality than both their CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells. DP T-cells were found to exhibit greater proliferation and higher multifunctionality compared to CD4 T-cells in the viral controller group. The DP T-cell response represented 16% of the total anti-HIV proliferative response and greater than 70% of the anti-HIV multifunctional response in the acutely infected subjects. Proliferating DP T-cells of the acutely infected subjects responded to all HIV antigen pools with equal magnitude. Conversely, the multifunctional response was focused on the pool representing Nef, Rev, Tat, VPR and VPU. Meanwhile, the controllers’ DP T-cells focused on Gag and the Nef, Rev, Tat, VPR and VPU pool for both their proliferative and multifunctional responses. Finally, we show that the presence of proliferating DP T-cells following all HIV antigen stimulations is well correlated with proliferating CD4 T-cells while multifunctionality appears to be largely independent of multifunctionality in other T-cell compartments. Therefore, DP T-cells represent a highly reactive cell population during acute HIV infection, which responds independently from the traditional T-cell compartments