Abstract

HIV establishes a persistent infection in heterogeneous cell reservoirs, which can be maintained by different mechanisms including cellular proliferation, and represent the main obstacle to curing the infection. The expression of the Fcγ receptor CD32 has been identified as a marker of the active cell reservoirs in people on antiretroviral therapy, but if its expression has any role in conferring advantage for viral persistence is unknown. Here, we report that HIV-infected cells expressing CD32 have reduced susceptibility to natural killer (NK) antibody-dependent cell cytotoxicity (ADCC) by a mechanism compatible with the suboptimal binding of HIV-specific antibodies. Infected CD32 cells have increased proliferative capacity in the presence of immune complexes, and are more resistant to strategies directed to potentiate NK function. Remarkably, reactivation of the latent reservoir from antiretroviral-treated people living with HIV increases the pool of infected CD32 cells, which are largely resistant to the ADCC immune mechanism. Thus, we report the existence of reservoir cells that evade part of the NK immune response through the expression of CD32.

Data availability

The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its supplementary information files. Source data are provided with this paper.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Antonio Astorga-Gamaza

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Judith Grau-Expósito

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Joaquín Burgos

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Jordi Navarro

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7187-0367
  5. Adrià Curran

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Bibiana Planas

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Paula Suanzes

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6871-0098
  8. Vicenç Falcó

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Meritxell Genescà

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Maria Buzon

    Infectious Disease Department, Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain
    For correspondence
    mariajose.buzon@vhir.org
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4427-9413

Funding

Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation (SAF2015-67334-R)

  • Maria Buzon

Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation (RTI2018-101082-B)

  • Maria Buzon

Fundació La Marató TV3 (201805-10FMTV3)

  • Maria Buzon

Fundació La Marató TV3 (201814-10FMTV3)

  • Meritxell Genescà

Spanish Health Institute Carlos III (CP17/00179)

  • Maria Buzon

Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation (BES-2016-076382)

  • Antonio Astorga-Gamaza

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: This study involves human samples. PBMCs from PLWH were obtained from the HIV unit of the Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona, Spain. Study protocols were approved by the corresponding Ethical Committees (Institutional Review Board numbers PR(AG)270/2015 and PR(AG)39/2016). PBMCs from healthy donors were obtained from the Blood and Tissue Bank, Barcelona, Spain. All subjects recruited to this study were adults who provided written informed consent. Samples were completely anonymous and untraceable and were prospectively collected and cryopreserved in the Biobank (register number C.0003590).

Copyright

© 2022, Astorga-Gamaza et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 1,999
    views
  • 314
    downloads
  • 14
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Antonio Astorga-Gamaza
  2. Judith Grau-Expósito
  3. Joaquín Burgos
  4. Jordi Navarro
  5. Adrià Curran
  6. Bibiana Planas
  7. Paula Suanzes
  8. Vicenç Falcó
  9. Meritxell Genescà
  10. Maria Buzon
(2022)
Identification of HIV-reservoir cells with reduced susceptibility to antibody-dependent immune response
eLife 11:e78294.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78294

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78294

Further reading

    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Yuqian Wang, Guibin Wang ... Xiangmin Lin
    Research Article

    Protein NƐ-lysine acetylation (Kac) modifications play crucial roles in diverse physiological and pathological functions in cells. In prokaryotic cells, there are only two types of lysine deacetylases (KDACs) that are Zn2+- or NAD+-dependent. In this study, we reported a protein, AhCobQ, in Aeromonas hydrophila ATCC 7966 that presents NAD+- and Zn2+-independent KDAC activity. Furthermore, its KDAC activity is located in an unidentified domain (from 195 to 245 aa). Interestingly, AhCobQ has no homology with current known KDACs, and no homologous protein was found in eukaryotic cells. A protein substrate analysis showed that AhCobQ has specific protein substrates in common with other known KDACs, indicating that these KDACs can dynamically co-regulate the states of Kac proteins. Microbiological methods employed in this study affirmed AhCobQ’s positive regulation of isocitrate dehydrogenase (ICD) enzymatic activity at the K388 site, implicating AhCobQ in the modulation of bacterial enzymatic activities. In summary, our findings present compelling evidence that AhCobQ represents a distinctive type of KDAC with significant roles in bacterial biological functions.

    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Michi Miura, Naho Kiuchi ... Mineki Saito
    Research Article

    Influenza A virus transcribes viral mRNAs from the eight segmented viral genome when it infects. The kinetics of viral transcription, nuclear export of viral transcripts, and their potential variation between the eight segments are poorly characterised. Here, we introduce a statistical framework for estimating the nuclear export rate of each segment from a snapshot of in situ mRNA localisation. This exploits the cell-to-cell variation at a single time point observed by an imaging-based in situ transcriptome assay. Using our model, we revealed the variation in the mRNA nuclear export rate of the eight viral segments. Notably, the two influenza viral antigens hemagglutinin and neuraminidase were the slowest segments in the nuclear export, suggesting the possibility that influenza A virus uses the nuclear retention of viral transcripts to delay the expression of antigenic molecules. Our framework presented in this study can be widely used for investigating the nuclear retention of nascent transcripts produced in a transcription burst.