Defining distinctive attributes of HIV-infected cells will inform development of HIV cure-directed therapies. Prior ex vivo studies of blood and tissue have suggested that some HIV-infected CD4 T cells are found in conjugates with other cell types. Here, we analyzed levels and sequences of HIV nucleic acids in sorted cellular conjugates from PBMC. Compared to single CD4 T cells, conjugates containing CD4 T cells showed no enrichment for HIV DNA or RNA. However, in several HIV controllers, HIV DNA sequences from sorted conjugates were enriched for sequences closely related to plasma viruses. In ART-treated people, although subgenomic HIV DNA sequences in sorted conjugates and single cells were genetically intermingled, intact proviruses were more frequent in whole blood cells than in magnetically-purified CD4 T cells. We conclude that some HIV-infected cells have attributes that predict preferential loss during sample processing, and that may also reflect vulnerability to therapeutic targeting in vivo.

中文翻译：

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外周血细胞结合物中HIV储库的分析

定义受HIV感染的细胞的独特属性将有助于HIV指导治疗的发展。先前对血液和组织的离体研究表明，在与其他细胞类型的结合物中发现了一些HIV感染的CD4 T细胞。在这里，我们分析了来自PBMC的细胞缀合物中HIV核酸的水平和序列。与单个CD4 T细胞相比，含有CD4 T细胞的结合物未显示HIV DNA或RNA的富集。然而，在几个HIV控制者中，来自结合物的HIV DNA序列被富集了与血浆病毒密切相关的序列。在接受ART治疗的人群中，尽管分选后的结合物和单细胞中的亚基因组HIV DNA序列在基因上混杂在一起，但完整的原病毒在全血细胞中比在磁纯化的CD4 T细胞中更为频繁。