No difference in in vitro susceptibility to HIV type 1 between high-risk HIV-negative Ethiopian commercial sex workers and low-risk control subjects

Abstract

Host factors such as increased b-chemokine production, HIV-1 coreceptor expression level, and HIV-1 coreceptor polymorphism have been thought to influence susceptibility to HIV-1 infection. To determine the protective role of these factors in Ethiopians who remained HIV-1 uninfected, despite multiple high-risk sexual exposures, we studied 21 Ethiopian women who had been employed as commercial sex workers (CSWs) for five or more years. The HIV-1-resistant CSWs were compared with low-risk age-matched female controls who had a comparable CD41 cell percentage and mean fluorescence intensity (MFI). Genetic polymorphism in the CCR5, CCR2b, or SDF-1 genes appeared not to be associated with resistance in the Ethiopian CSWs. Expression levels of CCR5 and CXCR4 on naive, memory, and total CD41 T cells tended to be higher in the resistant CSWs, while the production of b-chemokines RANTES, MIP-1a, and MIP-1b by phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) was lower compared with low-risk HIV-1 negative controls. In vitro susceptibility of PHA-stimulated PBMCs to primary, CCR5-restricted, Ethiopian HIV1 isolates was comparable between resistant CSWs and low-risk controls. In vitro susceptibility was positively correlated to CD41 cell mean fluorescence intensity and negatively correlated to CCR5 expression levels, suggesting that infection of PBMCs was primarily dependent on expression levels of CD4 and that CCR5 expression, above a certain threshold, did not further increase susceptibility. Our results show that coreceptor polymorphism, coreceptor expression levels, b-chemokine production, and cellular resistance to in vitro HIV1 infection are not associated with protection in high-risk HIV-1-negative Ethiopian CSWs.