Our unit is “Viral Reservoir and Immune Control” but was not listed.
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) blocks HIV replication but cannot eliminate viral reservoirs that originate viral rebound if ART is discontinued. However, the host laboratory originally described some individuals, post-treatment controllers (PTC), capable to durably control viremia after ART discontinuation. More recently, the group has found that HLA B*35 alleles (usually associated with rapid progression in the absence of ART) are paradoxically overrepresented in PTCs and are accompanied with an MHC immunogenetic fingerprint (termed Bw4TTC2 by the lab), related to KIR-education of NK cells.
The proposed work aims to better characterize transcriptional and functional signatures of NK cells in regard of immunogenetic factors. preliminary results from the EFS donors showed that NK cell education through different subsets of KIRs and/or NKG2A have different functional characteristics, indicating some type of specialization during development. However, the immunogenetic background might be especially relevant during this process of specialization.
