Dendritic cells generated from blood monocytes of HIV-1 patients are not infected and act as competent antigen presenting cells eliciting potent T-cell responses

The CTL response to HIV-1 can be vigorous, but antigen presenting cell requirements have not been studied in detail. To approach this question, we have examined the dendritic cell populations that can be obtained from the blood of HIV-1 infected individuals. We studied 13 asymptomatic patients, who spanned a wide range of plasma viremia and CD4 counts. We show here that sizeable numbers of mature dendritic cells can be generated from nonproliferating progenitors in the blood of HIV + patients using a recently developed approach. The procedure involves two steps. The first step or 'priming' phase is a 7 day culture of T-cell depleted mononuclear cells in medium supplemented with GM-CSF and IL-4. The second step or 'differentiation' phase requires the exposure to monocyte conditioned medium. The yields of DCs from HIV + individuals were comparable to normal blood donors, 0.4- 3 x 10(6) mature dendritic cells from 50 ml of blood. Strong APC function was evident for both the proliferation of allogeneic T-cells in the MLR, and the generation by syngeneic T-cells of class I restricted, CTL responses to influenza virus. A panel of dendritic cell restricted markers are expressed, including CD83, p55, and perinuclear CD68. By semi-quantitative PCR analysis, the cytokine derived cells did not express HIV-1 DNA. We suggest that these blood derived dendritic cells will be effective for studies of immune responses to HIV-1 antigens and may be considered as adjuvants for active immunotherapy. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.