Biomarkers of progression after HIV acute/early infection: Nothing compares to CD4+ T-cell count?

HORMANSTORFER, MACARENA; TURK, G; SALIDO, J; LAUFER, N; FALIVENE, J; TRIFONE, C; FIGUEROA, MI; GHIGLIONE, Y; HOLGADO, MP; PANDO, MA; COLOCCINI, ROMINA; SALOMÓN, H; PURY, PA; RUIZ, MJ; GHERARDI, MM; CARUSO, MP; SUED, O; GIAVEDONI, LD; RABINOVICH, D

Paris

Congreso; 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017); 2017

Progression of HIV infection is variable among individuals, and definition diseaseprogression biomarkers is still needed. Here, we aimed to categorize the predictive potentialof several variables using feature selection methods and decision trees. A total of seventy-fivetreatment-naïve subjects were enrolled during acute/early HIV infection. CD4+ T-cell counts (CD4TC)and viral load (VL) levels were determined at enrollment and for one year. Immune activation,HIV-specific immune response, Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) and C-C chemokine receptortype 5 (CCR5) genotypes, and plasma levels of 39 cytokines were determined. Data were analyzedby machine learning and non-parametric methods. Variable hierarchization was performed byWeka correlation-based feature selection and J48 decision tree. Plasma interleukin (IL)-10, interferongamma-induced protein (IP)-10, soluble IL-2 receptor alpha (sIL-2R) and tumor necrosis factoralpha (TNF-) levels correlated directly with baseline VL, whereas IL-2, TNF-, fibroblast growthfactor (FGF)-2 and macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1 correlated directly with CD4+ T-cellactivation (p < 0.05). However, none of these cytokines had good predictive values to distinguish?progressors? from ?non-progressors?. Similarly, immune activation, HIV-specific immune responsesand HLA/CCR5 genotypes had low discrimination power. Baseline CD4TC was the most potentdiscerning variable with a cut-off of 438 cells/L (accuracy = 0.93, -Cohen = 0.85). Limited discerningpower of the other factors might be related to frequency, variability and/or sampling time. Futurestudies based on decision trees to identify biomarkers of post-treatment control are warrantied.