miRNA profiling of CD4+ T cells in chronically infected HIV-1 patients, LTNPs and healthy controls

We extracted total RNA from CD4+ T cells from 3 patient groups: chronic HIV-1 patients (CHI), long term non-progressors (LTNPs) and healthy controls (HC). Array results show that a large number of miRNAs are altered in HIV-1 infected patients compared to HC. Most of the differentially expressed miRNAs are down-regulated but there are some up-regulated miRNAs. A particular family of miRNAs which appear to be downregulated in HIV-1 infected patients is the let-7 family of miRNAs. In this study, we have included 8 healthy controls, 7 LTNPs and 7 CHI patients. We extracted RNA from magnetically separated CD4+ T cells (separated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells) and ran them on an Agilent miRNA array.