AUTHOR=Luo Xiaoyu , Frouard Julie , Zhang Gang , Neidleman Jason , Xie Guorui , Sheedy Emma , Roan Nadia R. , Greene Warner C. TITLE=Subsets of Tissue CD4 T Cells Display Different Susceptibilities to HIV Infection and Death: Analysis by CyTOF and Single Cell RNA-seq JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.883420 DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2022.883420 ISSN=1664-3224 ABSTRACT=

CD4 T lymphocytes belong to diverse cellular subsets whose sensitivity or resistance to HIV-associated killing remains to be defined. Working with lymphoid cells from human tonsils, we characterized the HIV-associated depletion of various CD4 T cell subsets using mass cytometry and single-cell RNA-seq. CD4 T cell subsets preferentially killed by HIV are phenotypically distinct from those resistant to HIV-associated cell death, in a manner not fully accounted for by their susceptibility to productive infection. Preferentially-killed subsets express CXCR5 and CXCR4 while preferentially-infected subsets exhibit an activated and exhausted effector memory cell phenotype. Single-cell RNA-seq analysis reveals that the subsets of preferentially-killed cells express genes favoring abortive infection and pyroptosis. These studies emphasize a complex interplay between HIV and distinct tissue-based CD4 T cell subsets, and the important contribution of abortive infection and inflammatory programmed cell death to the overall depletion of CD4 T cells that accompanies untreated HIV infection.