Abstract: Objective To investigate the cytotoxicity of γδ T cells to HIV-1 latency cell in patients with early HIV-1 infection. Methods Sixteen early HIV-1-infected patients were enrolled in this study. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients were isolated and γδ T cells were expanded using zoledronate (5 μmol/L) and interleukin (IL)-2 (1 000 IU/mL) ex vivo. Lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) was used to detect the cytotoxic role of γδ T cells to HIV-1 latency cell (J-Lat Full Length Clone10.6). The phenotype of γδ T cells before and after expansion and the intensity of GFP in HIV-1 latency cells were detected by flow cytometry. Results Zoledronate plus IL-2 stimulate rapid and large γδ T cells proliferation ex vivo (P<0.001). γδ T cells showed high cytotoxicity to latency cells, and the intensity of GFP in latency cells were decreased significantly (P<0.05). Moreover, expanded γδ T cells displayed cytotoxic NK-like phenotype, the frequency of CD56+Vδ2 T cells in patients with early HIV-1 infection was significant higher than that in healthy controls. Conclusions γδ T cell has an ability to eradicate HIV-1 latency, and γδ T cell-based autologous or xenogenous adoptive immunotherapy will be promising prospects to cure HIV-1 infection.

Key words: human immunodeficiency-1, latency, γδ T cell, immunotherapy