To identify novel biomarkers for HIV-1 resistance, including pathways that may be critical in anti-HIV-1 vaccine design, we carried out a gene expression analysis on blood samples obtained from HIV-1 highly exposed seronegatives HESN from a commercial sex worker cohort in Nairobi and compared their profiles to HIV-1 negative controls.
Whole blood samples were collected from 43 HIV-1 resistant sex workers and a similar number of controls. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of the differentially expressed genes readily distinguished HESNs from controls. Ribosomal protein synthesis and tight junction genes were up regulated. We infer that the hallmark of HIV-1 resistance is down regulation of genes in key signaling pathways that HIV-1 depends on for infection. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The disease AIDS perhaps ranks as one of the most devastating scourges of mankind. Since it was identified in more than 30 million people have died and another 33 million currently live with the virus [1] , [2]. Despite advances made in antiretroviral therapy, only a third of those requiring treatment receive it and new infections far outstrip those on therapy [4].
Similar to other previous viral epidemics, prevention through vaccination shall be the best approach. However, the nature of the AIDS virus to integrate itself to the host genome and its ability to constantly mutate and shield immunogenic components that induce protective antibodies, continue to pose challenges for an effective vaccine. The presence of individuals who are highly exposed to HIV-1 but do not get infected, provide hope for a better understanding of correlates for protection that may lead to a more effective vaccine strategy.
Highly exposed seronegative HESN populations have been identified among intravenous drug users [6] , children born to seropositive mothers [7] , [8] , discordant couples [9] , [10] , and commercial sex workers [11] β [13].
