1. Academic Validation
  2. Elevated glutamate impedes anti-HIV-1 CD8 + T cell responses in HIV-1-infected individuals on antiretroviral therapy

Elevated glutamate impedes anti-HIV-1 CD8 + T cell responses in HIV-1-infected individuals on antiretroviral therapy

  • Commun Biol. 2023 Jul 7;6(1):696. doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-04975-z.
You-Yuan Wang # 1 2 Cheng Zhen # 2 Wei Hu # 3 Hui-Huang Huang 2 Yan-Jun Li 4 Ming-Ju Zhou 2 Jing Li 2 Yu-Long Fu 2 Peng Zhang 2 Xiao-Yu Li 2 Tao Yang 1 2 Jin-Wen Song 1 2 Xing Fan 2 Jun Zou 4 Si-Run Meng 4 Ya-Qin Qin 4 Yan-Mei Jiao 2 Ruonan Xu 1 2 Ji-Yuan Zhang 2 Chun-Bao Zhou 2 Jin-Hong Yuan 2 Lei Huang 2 Ming Shi 1 2 Liang Cheng 5 Fu-Sheng Wang 6 7 8 Chao Zhang 9 10 11
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Medical School of Chinese PLA, Beijing, China.
  • 2 Department of Infectious Diseases, The Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Beijing, China.
  • 3 Department of Emergency, Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA Hospital, Beijing, China.
  • 4 Guangxi AIDS Clinical Treatment Centre, The Fourth People's Hospital of Nanning, Nanning, China.
  • 5 Medical Research Institute, Frontier Science Center of Immunology and Metabolism, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
  • 6 Medical School of Chinese PLA, Beijing, China. [email protected].
  • 7 Department of Infectious Diseases, The Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Beijing, China. [email protected].
  • 8 Guangxi AIDS Clinical Treatment Centre, The Fourth People's Hospital of Nanning, Nanning, China. [email protected].
  • 9 Medical School of Chinese PLA, Beijing, China. [email protected].
  • 10 Department of Infectious Diseases, The Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Beijing, China. [email protected].
  • 11 Guangxi AIDS Clinical Treatment Centre, The Fourth People's Hospital of Nanning, Nanning, China. [email protected].
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

CD8 + T cells are essential for long-lasting HIV-1 control and have been harnessed to develop therapeutic and preventive approaches for people living with HIV-1 (PLWH). HIV-1 Infection induces marked metabolic alterations. However, it is unclear whether these changes affect the anti-HIV function of CD8 + T cells. Here, we show that PLWH exhibit higher levels of plasma glutamate than healthy controls. In PLWH, glutamate levels positively correlate with HIV-1 reservoir and negatively correlate with the anti-HIV function of CD8 + T cells. Single-cell metabolic modeling reveals glutamate metabolism is surprisingly robust in virtual memory CD8 + T cells (TVM). We further confirmed that glutamate inhibits TVM cells function via the mTORC1 pathway in vitro. Our findings reveal an association between metabolic plasticity and CD8 + T cell-mediated HIV control, suggesting that glutamate metabolism can be exploited as a therapeutic target for the reversion of anti-HIV CD8 + T cell function in PLWH.

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