Co-culture of NK cells and autologous HIV-infected CD4+ T cells in vitro

In this experiment, we co-cultured NK cells with autologous HIV-infected CD4+ T cells in vitro at different effector-to-target (E:T) ratios. The purpose of this experiment was to optimize the co-culture system to evaluate NK cell response to autologous HIV-infected CD4+ T cells.
Conclusion:
We observed consistent NK cell responses with cytolytic degranulation (by the expression of the degranulation marker CD107a), cytokine production (for the canonical NK cell cytokine IFN-ɣ), and viral suppression mediated by NK cells with a reduction in levels of p24+ cells. Both degranulation and cytokine production scaled negatively with increasing effector:target (E:T) ratio. Viral suppression scaled positively with E:T ratio.
Notes:
This in vitro system allows us to probe specific interactions involved in NK cell recognition of HIV and the initiation of downstream HIV-specific responses.