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J. Virol. doi:10.1128/JVI.01131-07
Copyright (c) 2007, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Efficient thymopoiesis participates in the maintenance of peripheral CD4 T-cells during chronic HIV-2 infection

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

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: remi{at}pasteur.fr.

	Abstract

HIV-2 infection leads to a lifelong asymptomatic period in the majority of patients. Even in progressing patients, a slow CD4 count decline characterizes the chronic phase of HIV-2 infection, suggesting that peripheral T-cell homeostasis is better controlled in this pathology than following HIV-1 infection. Herein we evidenced that, contrarily to HIV-1 infected patients, HIV-2 infected patients demonstrate an enhanced thymic function as compared to age-matched healthy individuals. The correlation between higher thymic production and smaller CD4 T-cell loss in these patients, suggests that an efficient thymopoiesis is implicated in the long lasting maintenance of CD4 T-cell counts in HIV-2 disease.