Jeremy Smedley, Mirko Paiardini, Levelle D. Harris, Rhonda MacAllister, Charles M. Trubey, W. Gregory Alvord, Jeffrey D. Lifson, Octavio A. Quiñones, David R. Morcock, Jacob D. Estes, Michael Piatak, Brian Tabb, Xing Pei Hao, Guido Silvestri, and Jason M. Brenchley
(See the editorial commentary by Michael on pages 875–6.) Persistent immune activation is a hallmark of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection in humans and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection in rhesus macaques. In progressive HIV/SIV infections, the level of immune activation has been demonstrated to be a stronger predictor of disease progression than either plasma viral load or peripheral CD4+ T-cell count [1, 2]. Acute infection is associated with the development of intense immune activation that remains abnormally high throughout the course of infection in the absence of antiretroviral treatment (ART). This persistent pathological immune activation is associated with elevated proinflammatory cytokine and coagulation markers that correlate with an increased risk of death among HIV-positive patients [3]. In SIV-infected monkeys and HIV-infected humans, early augmentation of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines in lymphoid tissues may play a key role in modulating disease progression [4, 5]. Notably, early high expression of both proinflammatory and antiinflammatory molecules in lymphoid tissues has been proposed to contribute to enhanced immune activation, resulting in tissue damage rather than viral control, thus driving disease progression [4, 6]. Dissecting the elements of the acute inflammatory response that lead to chronic immune activation and disease progression may provide insights that can aid the development of specific adjunctive therapies that may limit inflammation-induced tissue damage and thereby improve the prognosis of HIV-infected individuals. The inflammatory response to infections reflects the aggregate effects of various cytokines and other soluble factors produced by multiple cellular populations. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) has been identified as a key regulator and amplifier of inflammatory responses, with effects on the innate and adaptive immune systems [7–9]. TNF has been proposed to contribute to the overall pathogenesis of HIV/SIV infection, enhancing viral propagation, lymphocyte depletion, and clinical manifestations of disease. High TNF levels have been shown to be associated with all stages of HIV-1 infection, with increased TNF expression in the plasma and lymphoid tissues during acute HIV-1 infection [10, 11]. Sequential plasma samples collected during the eclipse and exponential viral expansion phases of acute HIV-1 infection demonstrated rapid and robust inflammatory responses, including early and sustained increases in TNF, that likely have immunopathological consequences by promoting immune activation, viral replication, and CD4+ T-cell loss [12]. In nonhuman-primate models, elevated TNF expression has been shown in the serum, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, lymph nodes, and brain of infected animals in temporal association with SIV replication during acute infection [13–15]. In contrast, studies of nonprogressive and apathogenic SIV infection in natural hosts of SIV have shown a lack of TNF upregulation throughout the acute and chronic stages of SIV infection [16], suggesting that differences in the host acute inflammatory response may be critically important in pathogenesis and disease progression. Since TNF inhibitors are used to treat a range of inflammatory conditions [17, 18], and given the data suggesting that TNF may play a key role in the acute inflammatory response to HIV/SIV infection, we evaluated the effect of anti-TNF antibody (adalimumab; Humira) treatment during the first 12 weeks of SIV infection in a small, nonhuman-primate study. While treatment did not affect viral replication dynamics or systemic T-cell activation profiles, inhibition of the biological activity of TNF reduced proinflammatory gene expression in lymphoid tissues during acute infection and attenuated antiinflammatory responses to SIV associated with pathological damage of lymphoid tissues [6]. Specifically, TNF blockade attenuated 3 manifestations of inflammation associated with SIV infection: (1) infiltration of CD163+ macrophages and neutrophils into the paracortical T-cell zone, (2) transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) expression in the T-cell zone, and (3) lymphoid tissue fibrosis, which was associated with less CD4+ T-cell loss, demonstrating that modulation of inflammatory responses to HIV/SIV infection may beneficially affect pathogenesis, independent of any direct effects on viral replication.