The role of CD32 during HIV-1 infection

Persistence of latent HIV-1 in long-lived resting memory CD4+ T cells is a major barrier to curing HIV-1 infection, and thus a biomarker for latently infected cells would be of great scientific and clinical importance. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 Through an elegant discovery-based approach, Descours et al . reported that CD32a, an Fcγ receptor not normally expressed on T cells, is a potential biomarker for latently infected cells. 6 Using the quantitative viral outgrowth assay, we show that CD32+ CD4+ T cells do not harbor the majority of intact proviruses in the latent reservoir and that the enrichment found by Descours et al . may in part reflect the use of an ultrasensitive ELISA for HIV-1 p24 antigen that does not predict exponential viral outgrowth. Our studies show that CD32 is not a biomarker for the major population of latently infected CD4+ T cells.