High levels of CD4 super(+) CTLA-4 super(+) Treg cells and CCR5 density in HIV-1-infected patients with visceral leishmaniasis

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in HIV-1-infected patients has been associated with poor immunological recovery and frequent disease relapses. The aim of this study was to analyse the role of T cell populations, Treg cells and CCR5 density in patients with VL compared to HIV-1-infected patients without leishmaniasis. A cross-sectional study of nine Leishmania-HIV-1-coinfected (LH) patients with VL receiving suppressive cART for at least 1 year were compared to 16 HIV-1-infected patients with non-immunological response (NIR, CD4 count below 250 cells/mm super(3)) and 26 HIV-1-infected patients with immunological response (IR, CD4 count above 500 cells/mm super(3)) without leishmaniasis. LH patients had a deep depletion of naive T cells (p=0.002), despite similar levels of effector T cells compared to NIR patients. CD4 Treg cells were similar compared to NIR patients, but higher compared to IR patients (p