AUTHOR=Gao Leiqiong , Zhou Jing , Ye Lilin 

TITLE=Role of CXCR5+ CD8+ T cells in human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.998058

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2022.998058

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=HIV infection can be effectively suppressed by lifelong administration of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). However, viral rebound will occur upon stopping cART majority due to the long-term presence of an HIV reservoir, and it poses an ultimate barrier to drug-free virus remission. Memory CD4+ T cell subsets, especially TFH cells that reside in B-cell follicles within lymphoid tissues, are regarded as the predominant cellular compartment of the HIV reservoir. Substantial evidence confirmed that HIV-specific CD8+ T cells mediated cellular immunity can sustain long-term disease-free and transmission-free HIV control in elite controllers. However, mostly HIV cure strategies which look for expanded HIV-specific CD8+ T cells to control the virus are likely to fail largely due to the cellular exhaustion and TFH reservoir specialized anatomical structure that isolated largely HIV-specific CD8+ T cells entry into B-cell follicles. A loss of stem-like memory properties 
is a key feature of exhaustion. Recent studies found that CXCR5-expressed HIV-specific CD8+ T cells are memory-like CD8+ T cells and can migrate into B-cell follicles executes inhibition of viral replication. Moreover, this CD8 T-cell subset response to immune checkpoints blocking (ICB) treatment. In this Review, we discuss functions of this CD8 T-cell subset and propose the translation of these findings into viable HIV treatment and cure strategies.