Immunomodulation with IL-7 and IL-15 in HIV-1 infection

Jesper D Gunst; Nilu Goonetilleke; Thomas A Rasmussen; Ole S Søgaard

doi:10.1016/j.jve.2023.100347

Immunomodulation with IL-7 and IL-15 in HIV-1 infection

J Virus Erad. 2023 Sep 5;9(3):100347. doi: 10.1016/j.jve.2023.100347. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Jesper D Gunst^{1

2}, Nilu Goonetilleke^{3

4}, Thomas A Rasmussen^{1

2}, Ole S Søgaard^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
² Department of Infectious Diseases, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark.
³ Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
⁴ Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.

Abstract

Immunomodulating agents are substances that modify the host immune responses in diseases such as infections, autoimmune conditions and cancers. Immunomodulators can be divided into two main groups: 1) immunostimulators that activate the immune system such as cytokines, toll-like receptor agonists and immune checkpoint blockers; and 2) immunosuppressors that dampen an overactive immune system such as corticosteroids and cytokine-blocking antibodies. In this review, we have focussed on the two primarily T and natural killer (NK) cell homeostatic cytokines: interleukin-7 (IL-7) and -15 (IL-15). These cytokines are immunostimulators which act on immune cells independently of the presence or absence of antigen. In vivo studies have shown that IL-7 administration enhances proliferation of circulating T cells whereas IL-15 agonists enhance the proliferation and function of NK and CD8⁺ T cells. Both IL-7 and IL-15 therapies have been tested as single interventions in HIV-1 cure-related clinical trials. In this review, we explore whether IL-7 and IL-15 could be part of the therapeutic approaches towards HIV-1 remission.