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From the * Experimental Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of
Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892; To address the possible role of replicative senescence in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
infection, telomere length, telomerase activity, and in vitro replicative capacity were assessed in
peripheral blood T cells from HIV+ and HIV
Immune Cell Biology Program, Naval Medical Research
Institute, Bethesda, Maryland 20889; § Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892; and ¶ National
Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892
donors. Genetic and age-specific effects on
these parameters were controlled by studying HIV-discordant pairs of monozygotic twins. Telomere terminal restriction fragment (TRF) lengths from CD4+ T cells of HIV+ donors were
significantly greater than those from HIV
twins. In contrast, telomere lengths in CD8+ T cells
from HIV+ donors were shorter than in HIV
donors. The in vitro replicative capacity of
CD4+ cells from HIV+ donors was equivalent to that of HIV
donors in response to stimulation through T cell receptor CD3 and CD28. Little or no telomerase activity was detected in
freshly isolated CD4+ or CD8+ lymphocytes from HIV+ or HIV
donors, but was induced by
in vitro stimulation of both HIV+ and HIV
donor cells. These results suggest that HIV infection is associated with alterations in the population dynamics of both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells,
but fail to provide evidence for clonal exhaustion or replicative senescence as a mechanism underlying the decline in CD4+ T cells of HIV-infected donors.
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