Background: The efficacy of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) determined by simultaneous monitoring over 100 cell-surface antigens overtime has not been attempted. We used an antibody microarray to analyze changes in the expression of 135 different cell-surface antigens overtime on PBMC from HIV+ patients on HAART. Two groups were chosen, one (n = 6) achieved sustainable response by maintaining below detectable plasma viremia and the other (n = 6) responded intermittently. Blood samples were collected over an average of 3 years and 5-8 time points were selected for microarray assay and statistical analysis.
Results: Significant trends over time were observed for the expression of 7 cell surface antigens (CD2, CD3epsilon, CD5, CD95, CD36, CD27 and CD28) for combined patient groups. Between groups, expression levels of 10 cell surface antigens (CD11a, CD29, CD38, CD45RO, CD52, CD56, CD57, CD62E, CD64 and CD33) were found to be differential. Expression levels of CD9, CD11a, CD27, CD28 and CD52, CD44, CD49d, CD49e, CD11c strongly correlated with CD4+ and CD8+ T cell counts, respectively.
Conclusion: Our findings not only detected markers that may have potential prognostic/diagnostic values in evaluating HAART efficacy, but also showed how density of cell surface antigens could be efficiently exploited in an array-like manner in relation to HAART and HIV-infection. The antigens identified in this study should be further investigated by other methods such as flow cytometry for confirmation as biological analysis of these antigens may help further clarify their role during HAART and HIV infection.