The underlying premise of boosting an effective immune response is to recapitulate HIV-infected patients who can spontaneously control viral replication (elite controllers).
In the effort to define such correlates of control for CD8+ T cells, there has been considerable interest in "elite controllers" (ECs), rare individuals who spontaneously control HIV viremia to levels below the detection threshold of current assays (<50 vRNA copy Eq/ml plasma) [31].
In HIV-1 infection, some rare patients called HIV controllers (HICs) are capable to spontaneously control viral replication in vivo.
HIV-infected subjects who spontaneously control viremia are likely to mount effective combinations of immune responses.
HIV-1-infected individuals who spontaneously control viral replication represent an example of successful containment of the AIDS virus.
A smaller proportion of those infected, however, do spontaneously control virus infection in these, cellular immune responses are thought to play an important role [2], [3].
Part of this process is a re-examination of the mechanisms by which some HIV-infected individuals spontaneously control viral replication in the absence of antiretroviral therapy.
These data collectively indicate that α-defensins1-3 secretion by imMDDC is clearly increased in HIV-infected individuals who spontaneously control the infection.
In conclusion, we demonstrate that DC from HIV-infected patients that spontaneously control the infection produced higher levels of α-defensins1-3, which positively correlated with CD4 T cell counts and were associated with slower progression.
As viral load relates to transmission and disease progression [36], [37], further comprehension of the mechanisms by which some infected individuals spontaneously control HIV-1 replication could assist in the development of vaccines that augment control of infection, reduce risk of transmission, and ameliorate disease progression [35], [38].
