Publications (6)5.4 Total impact
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Article: HLA class I-driven evolution of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 subtype c proteome: immune escape and viral load
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ABSTRACT: Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) mutations that confer escape from cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) recognition can sometimes result in lower viral fitness. These mutations can then revert upon transmission to a new host in the absence of CTL-mediated immune selection pressure restricted by the HLA alleles of the prior host. To identify these potentially critical recognition points on the virus, we assessed HLA-driven viral evolution using three phylogenetic correction methods across full HIV-1 subtype C proteomes from a cohort of 261 South Africans and identified amino acids conferring either susceptibility or resistance to CTLs. A total of 558 CTL-susceptible and -resistant HLA-amino acid associations were identified and organized into 310 immunological sets (groups of individual associations related to a single HLA/epitope combination). Mutations away from seven susceptible residues, including four in Gag, were associated with lower plasma viral-RNA loads (q < 0.2 [where q is the expected false-discovery rate]) in individuals with the corresponding HLA alleles. The ratio of susceptible to resistant residues among those without the corresponding HLA alleles varied in the order Vpr > Gag > Rev > Pol > Nef > Vif > Tat > Env > Vpu (Fisher's exact test; P < or = 0.0009 for each comparison), suggesting the same ranking of fitness costs by genes associated with CTL escape. Significantly more HLA-B (chi(2); P = 3.59 x 10(-5)) and HLA-C (chi(2); P = 4.71 x 10(-6)) alleles were associated with amino acid changes than HLA-A, highlighting their importance in driving viral evolution. In conclusion, specific HIV-1 residues (enriched in Vpr, Gag, and Rev) and HLA alleles (particularly B and C) confer susceptibility to the CTL response and are likely to be important in the development of vaccines targeted to decrease the viral load.Journal of virology. 01/2008; 82(13):6434-46. -
Article: Effective T-cell responses select human immunodeficiency virus mutants and slow disease progression.
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ABSTRACT: The possession of some HLA class I molecules is associated with delayed progression to AIDS. The mechanism behind this beneficial effect is unclear. We tested the idea that cytotoxic T-cell responses restricted by advantageous HLA class I molecules impose stronger selection pressures than those restricted by other HLA class I alleles. As a measure of the selection pressure imposed by HLA class I alleles, we determined the extent of HLA class I-associated epitope variation in a cohort of European human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive individuals (n=84). We validated our findings in a second, distinct cohort of African patients (n=516). We found that key HIV epitopes restricted by advantageous HLA molecules (B27, B57, and B51 in European patients and B5703, B5801, and B8101 in African patients) were more frequently mutated in individuals bearing the restricting HLA than in those who lacked the restricting HLA class I molecule. HLA alleles associated with clinical benefit restricted certain epitopes for which the consensus peptides were frequently recognized by the immune response despite the circulating virus's being highly polymorphic. We found a significant inverse correlation between the HLA-associated hazard of disease progression and the mean HLA-associated prevalence of mutations within epitopes (P=0.028; R2=0.34). We conclude that beneficial HLA class I alleles impose strong selection at key epitopes. This is revealed by the frequent association between effective T-cell responses and circulating viral escape mutants and the rarity of these variants in patients who lack these favorable HLA class I molecules, suggesting a significant pressure to revert.Journal of Virology 07/2007; 81(12):6742-51. · 5.40 Impact Factor -
Article: CD8+ T-cell responses to different HIV proteins have discordant associations with viral load
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ABSTRACT: Selection of T-cell vaccine antigens for chronic persistent viral infections has been largely empirical. To define the relationship, at the population level, between the specificity of the cellular immune response and viral control for a relevant human pathogen, we performed a comprehensive analysis of the 160 dominant CD8(+) T-cell responses in 578 untreated HIV-infected individuals from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Of the HIV proteins targeted, only Gag-specific responses were associated with lowering viremia. Env-specific and Accessory/Regulatory protein-specific responses were associated with higher viremia. Increasing breadth of Gag-specific responses was associated with decreasing viremia and increasing Env breadth with increasing viremia. Association of the specific CD8(+) T-cell response with low viremia was independent of HLA type and unrelated to epitope sequence conservation. These population-based data, suggesting the existence of both effective immune responses and responses lacking demonstrable biological impact in chronic HIV infection, are of relevance to HIV vaccine design and evaluation.Nature medicine. 01/2007; 13(1):46-53. -
Article: CD8+ T-cell responses to different HIV proteins have discordant associations with viral load
Nat Med. 13:46-53. -
Article: Adaptation of HIV-1 to human leukocyte antigen class I
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ABSTRACT: The rapid and extensive spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic provides a rare opportunity to witness host-pathogen co-evolution involving humans. A focal point is the interaction between genes encoding human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and those encoding HIV proteins. HLA molecules present fragments (epitopes) of HIV proteins on the surface of infected cells to enable immune recognition and killing by CD8 + T cells; particular HLA molecules, such as HLA-B*57, HLA-B*27 and HLA-B*51, are more likely to mediate successful control of HIV infection. Mutation within these epitopes can allow viral escape from CD8 + T-cell recognition. Here we analysed viral sequences and HLA alleles from 2,800 subjects, drawn from 9 distinct study cohorts spanning 5 continents. Initial analysis of the HLA-B*51-restricted epitope, TAFTIPSI (reverse transcriptase residues 128-135), showed a strong correlation between the frequency of the escape mutation I135X and HLA-B*51 prevalence in the 9 study cohorts (P = 0.0001). Extending these analyses to incorporate other well-defined CD8 + T-cell epitopes, including those restricted by HLA-B*57 and HLA-B*27, showed that the frequency of these epitope variants (n = 14) was consistently correlated with the prevalence of the restricting HLA allele in the different cohorts (together, P 0.0001), demonstrating strong evidence of HIV adaptation to HLA at a population level. This process of viral adaptation may dismantle the well-established HLA associations with control of HIV infection that are linked to the availability of key epitopes, and highlights the challenge for a vaccine to keep pace with the changing immunological landscape presented by HIV. © 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.Kawashima, Y., Pfafferott, K. <http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/view/author/Pfafferott, Katja.html>, Frater, J., Matthews, P., Payne, R., Addo, M., Gatanaga, H., Fujiwara, M., Hachiya, A., Koizumi, H., Kuse, N., Oka, S., Duda, A., Prendergast, A., Crawford, H., Leslie, A., Brumme, Z., Brumme, C., Allen, T., Brander, C., Kaslow, R., Tang, J., Hunter, E., Allen, S., Mulenga, J., Branch, S., Roach, T., John, M. <http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/view/author/John, Mina.html>, Mallal, S. <http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/view/author/Mallal, Simon.html>, Ogwu, A., Shapiro, R., Prado, J.G., Fidler, S., Weber, J., Pybus, O.G., Klenerman, P., Ndungâu, T., Phillips, R., Heckerman, D., Harrigan, P.R., Walker, Bruce D., Takiguchi, M. and Goulder, P. (2009) Adaptation of HIV-1 to human leukocyte antigen class I. Nature, 458 (7238). pp. 641-645. -
Article: Adaptation of HIV-1 to human leukocyte antigen class I
Nature. 458:641-5.
