Identification of NK Cell Subpopulations That Differentiate HIV-Infected Subject Cohorts with Diverse Levels of Virus Control

Abstract

HIV infection results in the establishment of a stable reservoir of latently infected cells; ART is usually required to keep viral replication under control and disease progression at bay, though a small subset of HIV-infected subjects can control HIV infection without ART through immunological mechanisms. In this study, we sought to identify subpopulations of NK cells that may be involved in the natural immunological control of HIV infection. We used mass cytometry to measure surface marker expression on peripheral NK cells. Using two distinct semisupervised machine learning approaches, we identified a CD11b + CD57 − CD161 + Siglec-7 + subpopulation of CD56 dim CD16 + NK cells that differentiates HIV controllers from noncontrollers. These cells can be sorted out for future functional studies to assess their potential role in the immunological control of HIV infection.