There is an urgent need to understand the nature of immune responses against SARS-CoV-2, to inform risk-mitigation strategies for people living with HIV (PLWH). Here we show that the majority of PLWH with ART suppressed HIV viral load, mount a detectable adaptive immune response to SARS-CoV-2. Humoral and SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses are comparable between HIV-positive and negative subjects and persist 5-7 months following predominately mild COVID-19 disease. T cell responses against Spike, Membrane and Nucleoprotein are the most prominent, with SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4 T cells outnumbering CD8 T cells. We further show that the overall magnitude of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses relates to the size of the naive CD4 T cell pool and the CD4:CD8 ratio in PLWH. These findings suggest that inadequate immune reconstitution on ART, could hinder immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 with implications for the individual management and vaccine effectiveness in PLWH.
Journal article
Nature communications
10/2021
12
Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
T-Lymphocytes, CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes, CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes, Humans, HIV Infections, Antibodies, Viral, Antigens, Viral, Cohort Studies, Antibody Formation, Species Specificity, Phenotype, Genome, Human, Adult, Aged, Middle Aged, Tissue Donors, Female, Male, Interferon-gamma, Immunity, Humoral, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2