Expression of T cell surface antigens by mitogen stimulated lymphocytes from patients with AIDS

Abnormalities of surface marker expression on T cells from patients with AIDS include decreased expression of T4 and increased expression of T10 and HLA-DR. In order to determine whether the impared blastogenic response of cells from AIDS patients to PHA and PWM was reflected by their surface marker expression, we stimulated patient and normal cells with these mitogens and evaluated them daily for expression of the phenotype markers T3, T4, T8, T11 and the activation markers T9, T10, HLA-DR and Tac. Increases in percentage expression of the 74 marker were seen in AIDS cultures stimulated with PHA for 5 days (18.0-41.1%, p=0.01). Expression of T10 and HLA-DR was increased in normal cultures (T10:PHA, 16.0-53.41, p=0.01, PWM, 16.1-33.9%, p=0.03; HLA-DR:PHA, 8.6-227.3%, p=0.03, PWM, 2.5-26.6%, p=0.07) but the already elevated expression of these markers on AIDS cells was not affected. Impairment in expression of Tac was seen in AIDS cultures (PHA 48.0% in AIDS vs 77.1% in normals, p=.001), PWM 15.5% vs 35.3% in normals, p=0.04). We suggest that this abnormal response of AIDS cells may reflect their lack of susceptibility to immunoregulatory interactions and impairment of the host-defense mechanisms.