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Blood, 15 June 2005, Vol. 105, No. 12, pp. 4730-4735. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on February 10, 2005; DOI 10.1182/blood-2004-11-4272.
Submitted November 8, 2004
Section of Clinical Immunology and Infectious Diseases, University of Oslo, The National Hospital, Oslo, Norway * Corresponding author; email: magnar.bjoras{at}medisin.uio.no.
Several studies have reported enhanced oxidative stress in HIV infection. An important pathophysiological consequence of increased oxidative stress is endogenous DNA damage, and the base excision repair pathway is the most important mechanism to withstand such deleterious effects. To investigate the role of base excision repair in HIV infection we examined 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG) levels, as a marker of oxidative DNA damage, and DNA glycosylase activities in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from HIV-infected patients and controls. These results showed that HIV-infected patients, particularly those with advanced disease, were characterized by increased accumulation of 8oxoG in CD4+ T cells accompanied by a marked decline in DNA glycosylase activity for repair of oxidative base lesions in these cells. In contrast, CD8+ T cells from HIV-infected patients, with 8-oxoG levels similar to those in healthy controls, showed enhanced capacity to repair oxidative DNA damage. Finally, highly active antiretroviral therapy induced increased glycosylase activity in CD4+ T cells accompanied by normalization of 8-oxoG levels. This imbalance between accumulation of oxidative DNA damage and the capacity to repair such lesions in CD4+ T cells may represent a previous unrecognized mechanism involved in the numerical and functional impairment of CD4+ T cells in HIV infection.
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