Interleukin-27 is Differentially Associated with CD4 + T Cell Counts in HIV Saudi Patients under Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

The IL-27 as a pleiotropic essential host factor for HIV- infection that modulates both the innate and adaptive immune responses. The study design incorporated sixty-six HIV-1/AIDS Saudi patients under Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART1 and HAART2) and other twenty healthy individuals as a control. Flow cytometer estimated lymphocyte immunophenotyping which resembles the total of absolute counts of mature human lymphocyte subsets in whole blood. While plasma IL-27 and other cytokines; INF-γ, IL-2, IL-10, IL-4, IL-6, and TNF-α measured in pg/ml by Flow Immunoassay (Luminex 200). COBAS AmpliPrep assessed the association and quantitation of HIV-1 RNA viral load in plasma. The results indicated considerable significant differences between control and HAART 2 with the element (CD3+8+ T cells) as T-suppressor lymphocyte for the HAART2 with a mean (1109.62), against (779.82) for the control group. There are also considerable differences between control and HAART2 with element (CD3+4+ T cells (as T-helper), CD4+/CD8+ ratio, in favor of scrutiny group with mean (960.41) against (511.17) with element (CD3+4+ T cells), with mean (1.29) against (0.53) with element (CD4+/CD8+ ratio). In our study, viral load in HAART1 and HAART2 decreased below the lower limit of detection with median values of ≤ 20 copies/ml. CD4+ T cells count was indicated 41% change increase in HAART1 while it was 46.8% in HAART2 without any significant changes through one year. The constant dynamic change recorded for antiretroviral (ARV) therapy after 12 months while CD4+ T cells influenced on IL-27 with a percentage increase of 12.00% in HAART2. The results showed enormous differences between control and HAART2 groups with elements (INF-γ, IL-10, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-27, TNF-α). All of them had strong values at the level of 0.01 while IL-27 were significant at the level of 0.05. The IL-12 family included a heterodimeric cytokine of Interleukin 27 (IL27) which antigen-presenting cells produce it. It plays an important function in regulating the activity of B- and T-lymphocytes. IL-27 had the first protective effect against HIV-1 infection. The present study recommends the potential use plasma cytokines concentrations during acute HIV-1 infection especially IL-27 to predict subsequent disease progression. ARV therapies induce quantitative and qualitative alterations in the cytokine profile of persons that could be warrants attention which causes reductions in AIDS deaths. It is an important Immune-biomedical study for AIDS Saudi patients under medication to be followed up by physicians for managing the AIDS morbidity and mortality in KSA.