Introduction: Th17 cells are a recent characterized subtype of CD4+ T cells that respond to viral, bacterial and fungal antigens and are important in mucosal immunology. HIV infection results in loss of CD4+ T cells as well as in changes of the gastrointestinal tract permeability that causes microbial translocation and immune activation. It is believed that Th17 cells potentially interpret an important role in HIV progression. Here we examine the Th17 cells gene expression ofCD4+ T cells of HIV patients.

Materials and Methods: We interrogated two microarray datasets obtained from the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/) under accession number GSE18233 and GSE54627 in order to define the th17 gene profile characterizing HIV+ naive patients and Elite Controllers (EC) CD4 T cells. The Th17 cells gene pathway obtained after CD4 T cell differentiation from TH0 to Th17 was used as a control.

Results: Microarray analysis showed that 402, 405 and 443 TH17 genes were significantly upregulated in HIV, EC and Th17 respectively, while 380, 376 and 378 were significantly downregulated in HIV, EC and Th17 respectively, as compared to healthy and Th0. A total of 375 were common between HIV and EC and 11 common between HIV, EC and Th17. There were 30 genes characteristic of EC, 27 characteristic of HIV and 432 characteristic of Th17. Among the downregulated genes, 373 were common to HIV and EC and 2 were common between HIV, EC and Th17. There were 3 genes characteristic of EC, 7 were characteristic of HIV and 376 characteristic of Th17.We focused on 11 (upregulated) and 2 (downregulated) genes common between HIV, EC and Th17.

Conclusions: Understanding the mechanisms of HIV-associated to Th17 is critical to strategically plan focused interventions.