Didiana Jaramillo-Ruiz, Francisco Javier De La Mata, Rafael Gómez, Rafael Correa-Rocha, M Ángeles Muñoz-Fernández.
PLoS One. 2016 Jan 19;11(1):e0145760. eCollection 2016.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145760
Abstract
Background:
HIV-1 has proved to infect regulatory T cells (Treg) modifying their phenotype and impairing their suppressive capacity.
As Treg cells are a crucial component in the preservation of the immune homeostasis, we researched that the antiviral capacity of carboxilan dendrimers prevents the HIV-1 infection of Treg and their effects.
The phenotype and suppressive capacity of Treg treated or non-treated with carbosilane dendrimers were studied by flow cytometry.
Treated and non-treated Treg from healthy donors were infected with HIV-1NL4.3.
The infection of Treg cells by HIV-1, and protective effect of two dendrimers were determined by measuring antigen p24gag in the supernatant of the culture and intracellular.
Results:
The Treg cells were treated with cationic and anionic carbosilane dendrimers.
The results showed that both dendrimers did not modify the phenotype and functionality of Treg cells compared with non- treated Treg cells.
Anionic dendrimers showed high biocompatibility with normal activity of the Treg cells and in antiviral assays.
These dendrimers were highly active against HIV-1 preventing the infection of Treg, and were able to protect the Treg from the Foxp3 downregulation induced by the HIV-1 infection.
Conclusions:
This is the first work showing that the in vitro use of anionic dendrimers prevent the HIV-1 replication and the infection of expanded Treg cells in culture, which raises the possibility to use Treg cells therapeutically in HIV-1-infected subjects.