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Efficient Thymopoiesis Contributes to the Maintenance of Peripheral CD4 T Cells during Chronic Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2 Infection

Département de Virologie, Institut Pasteur, 28 rue du Dr. Roux, 75015 Paris, France,¹ Unidade de Imunologia Clínica, Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Egas Moniz, 1649-028 Lisboa, Portugal²

Received 24 May 2007/ Accepted 27 August 2007

Human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2) infection leads to a lifelong asymptomatic period in the majority of patients. Even in patients with progressive disease, a slow CD4 count decline characterizes the chronic phase of HIV-2 infection, suggesting that peripheral T-cell homeostasis is controlled better following HIV-2 infection than following HIV-1 infection. Herein we showed that, in contrast to HIV-1-infected patients, HIV-2-infected patients demonstrate enhanced thymic function compared to age-matched healthy individuals. The correlation between higher thymic production and lower CD4 T-cell loss in these patients suggests that efficient thymopoiesis is implicated in the long-lasting maintenance of CD4 T-cell counts in HIV-2 disease.

Published ahead of print on 5 September 2007.