The journal Trends in Immunology has published a special issue on immune senescence, and access to all articles is being offered free of charge (thanks to the sponsorship of the National Institutes of Health). The parallels between immune senescence in uninfected elderly individuals and people with HIV are increasingly well-recognized and include:
- Depletion of naive CD4 and CD8 T cells
- Involution of the thymus and decreased thymic output
- Skewing of the CD4:CD8 T cell ratio
- Accumulation of dysfunctional CD8 T cells lacking the CD28 co-stimulatory molecule
- Decreased responses to new immunizations
- Decreased recall (memory) T responses to common antigens
Research into immune senescence and its association with illness and mortality has gained considerably more attention recently, and may have the potential to offer important insights into the pathogenesis of HIV infection. Additional background on the topic, along with a link to a webcast presentation by immune senescence expert Rita Effros, can be found in a post from January of this year, "Accelerated Aging of the Immune System in HIV Infection."
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