Brief Report: Impaired CD4 T-Cell Response to Autophagy in Treated HIV-1-Infected Individuals.

Background: Autophagy restricts infection of CD4 T lymphocytes by HIV-1, but little is known about autophagy in treated HIV-1– infected individuals. We have analyzed the capability of CD4 T cells from aviremic-treated individuals to trigger autophagy and correlated this response with parameters known to be important for immunological recovery. Autophagy was significantly decreased in CD4 T cells from HIV-1–treated individuals com- pared with uninfected controls, and this defective autophagic response was more pronounced in individuals with poor CD4 T-cell recovery, suggesting a link between impaired autophagy in CD4 T cells and chronic immunological defects that remain in treated HIV infection.