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Immunological and virological markers of disease progression in HIV‐infected children
Author(s) -
MuñozFernández MA,
Navarro J.,
Obregón E.,
Arias RA,
Gurbindo MD,
Sampelayo TH,
FernándezCruz E.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1997.tb18319.x
Subject(s) - virology , concordance , virus , antigen , viral disease , phenotype , medicine , syncytium , rna , biology , immunology , polymerase chain reaction , viral culture , viral replication , in vitro , viral load , lymphocyte , gene , genetics
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), virus culture and antigen detection assays are useful for early detection of vertically transmitted human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV‐1) infection in infants under 12 months of age. Sixty‐four children born to HIV‐1‐seropositive mothers were evaluated. Thirteen children (20.3%) were repeatedly positive by PCR analysis. There was 100% concordance between the results obtained from PCR and culture assays. Measurement of p24 antigen in serum was, in contrast, a less sensitive marker of HIV infection: only 5/13 infants had positive p24 antigen results. We have investigated the relationship among the HIV‐1 biological phenotype, replicative capacity of viral isolates, HIV RNA copy number in plasma, p24 antigenaemia, CD4 T lymphocyte counts and the clinical status in 13 HIV‐infected infants. Six out of 13 HIV‐1 isolates from these patients were classified as rapid/high and seven as slow/low. We have found a significantly positive correlation between the replication rate of HIV isolates and their capacity to induce syncytia in vitro . The HIV‐1 isolates with rapid/high and syncytium‐inducing phenotype, and isolates with slow/low and non‐syncytium‐inducing phenotype were obtained from infants who had HIV‐1 RNA copy number ml −1 plasma values of 27654–83520 and 1342–34321, respectively. Levels of HIV‐1 RNA were measured in sequential plasma samples from three HIV‐infected infants and their biological properties determined in vitro . Our findings indicate that infants who carried viruses with more cytophatic biological phenotype and who had higher viral RNA copy numbers in blood were more likely to have lower CD4 + T cell counts and more likely to develop full‐blown AIDS.