Characterization of Tat antibody responses in Chinese individuals infected with HIV-1.

Qiuli Chen, Lan Li, Wenting Liao, Hongwei Zhang, Jinhong Wang, Bo Sheng, Huaqun Zhang, Xiaojie Huang, Yingying Ding, Tong Zhang, Jie Cao, Hao Wu, Wei Pan

PloS one 2013

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HIV-1 Tat is an important regulatory protein involved in AIDS pathogenesis. However, the immunoprofiles of anti-Tat responses remain unclear. We analysed the immunoprofiles of the anti-Tat antibody responses and the neutralizing activities. Out of 326 HIV-1-seropositive individuals, 12.9% were positive for anti-Tat antibodies. We found six different immunological profiles of anti-Tat antibody responses: full-potential response, combined response, N-specific response, C-specific response, full-length Tat-specific response and Tat-related response. These responses represent two types of anti-Tat responses: the major complete response and the alternative C-prone response. A Tat-neutralizing activity is significantly higher in anti-Tat-seropositive samples than anti-Tat-negative or healthy blood-donor samples, and significantly correlates with the anti-Tat reactivities. The data here could contribute to a better understanding of the significance of anti-Tat responses in preventing HIV pathogenesis and could be useful for designing more effective vaccines in the future.

Citation

Qiuli Chen, Lan Li, Wenting Liao, Hongwei Zhang, Jinhong Wang, Bo Sheng, Huaqun Zhang, Xiaojie Huang, Yingying Ding, Tong Zhang, Jie Cao, Hao Wu, Wei Pan. Characterization of Tat antibody responses in Chinese individuals infected with HIV-1. PloS one. 2013;8(4):e60825