Leveraging inflammation pathways to improve T cell immunity in people with HIV
Although antiretroviral therapy (ART) effectively inhibits HIV replication, chronic immune activation and inflammation persists in ART-treated people with HIV, and their life expectancy remains shortened. Consequently, people living with HIV exhibit an impaired protective immunity and vaccine efficacy and are more prone to non-AIDS-related comorbidities, such as cardiovascular diseases, non-HIV-associated cancers, and chronic liver and kidney disease. Thus, targeting inflammation in HIV infection could improve immunity to pathogens as well as overall health. Own experiments have demonstrated that ex vivo treatment of patient-derived immune cells with drugs having anti-inflammatory properties increases T cell cytokine responses towards tetanus and measles virus vaccine antigens. This project will explore the effects that in vivo treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs have on recall T cell responses of ART-treated people with HIV. Moreover, we aim to identify the underlying mechanisms of altered T cell functionality. Findings of this project may contribute to targeted interventions that can reduce inflammation and at the same time enhance T cell immunity of ART-treated people with HIV.
