Senescence and TGF-β producing Tregs drive HIV persistence and impaired immune homeostasis

The purpose of this study was to determine differences in gene expression profiles between Immune Responders (IR) and Immune non-Responders (INR) individuals. We have observed significant changes in the gene expression profiles between IRs and INRs and identified a subgroup of INR subjects that has a unique/distinct transcriptional profile and that clustered the furthest from IR subjects. Immune responder and non-responder individuals included in the study were HIV-infected and ART-treated for at least 3 years. Immune non-responder patients had CD4 T cells <350/µL and immune responder patients had CD4 T cells >500/µL. Whole blood was collected and lysed in RLT for RNA extraction. Reverse transcription reactions were performed to obtain cDNAs which were hybridized to the Illumina Human HT-12 version 4 Expression BeadChip according to the manufacturer’s instruction, and quantified using an Illumina iScan System. The data were collected with Illumina GenomeStudio software.