R7V is a seven-aminoacid
peptide epitope derived from cellular beta-2 microglobulin, present on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) virion surface in patients with
HIV infection.
Antibodies against R7V
peptide have the property of neutralizing all strains of HIV, unrelated to genotype, phenotype, or geographical origin of the virus, even in the presence of anti-retroviral drug resistance. Patients that mount an anti-R7V antibody response have been shown to be slow or non-progressors and this
epitope has been considered for
vaccine and/or
therapeutic uses. In this study, HIV-infected patients under highly active anti-retroviral
therapy (
HAART) at Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of
Infectious Diseases, were evaluated for the presence of anti-R7V
antibodies. Thirty-three HIV positive patients and 10 healthy controls were enrolled to the study. For HIV-infected patients, determination of viral load and CD4+ T lymphocyte counts were performed by a commercial real-time PCR assay and flow cytometry, respectively. Anti-R7V
antibodies were detected from serum samples by a commercial ELISA (Anti-R7V ELISA, Ivagen, France) test. Three HIV infected patients (3/33, 9.1%) displayed anti-R7V
antibodies whereas the remaining 30 (90.9%) patients and all controls were interpreted as negative. No statistically significant difference was detected for HIV-
RNA levels and CD4+ T lymphocyte counts between anti-R7V positive and negative patients (p= 0.871 and p= 0.287, respectively). These results indicate the presence of anti-R7V
antibodies in our study population with
HIV infection. No correlation with the presence of anti-R7V and
disease progression were displayed in this study. Clinical impact of anti-R7V antibody assays for the management of HIV-infected patients will be revealed in the near future with the help of advanced studies.