Eradication of clonally expanded CD4+ T cells

NIH RePORTER · NIH · R21 · $245,625 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

Project Summary Clonal expansion is a process where latently infected CD4+ T cells proliferate in response to their cognate antigen. It is thought that this process contributes significantly to the size of the HIV reservoir and therefore disrupting this mechanism could have a huge impact on the number of latently infected cells. We observed a significant decline in the number of expanded CD4+ T cell clones in an elite suppressor who received chemoradiation for lung cancer and we hypothesize that we can recapitulate this in vitro by stimulating CD4+ T cells with a combination of cognate antigen to induce proliferation, and either chemotherapeutic or antiproliferative agents that would selectively kill the dividing antigen-specific CD4+ T cells. If successful, a two-step process of vaccination of individuals with cognate antigen and short term treatment with chemotherapeutic or antiproliferative agents may be part of a strategy to reduce the size of the reservoir.

Key facts

NIH application ID
10548015
Project number
1R21AI172542-01
Recipient
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Principal Investigator
JOEL N BLANKSON
Activity code
R21
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2022
Award amount
$245,625
Award type
1
Project period
2022-05-13 → 2024-04-30