Distinct immune activation and cytokine signatures distinguish HIV-1, HIV-2, and HIV-dual infections

Abstract

This dataset consists of metadata for the participants whose blood samples were collected for immunology analysis. The underlying hypothesis tested was: whether the immune responses contribute to disease control observed among HIV-1 and HIV-2 dually infected individuals. Data from this study showed that HIV-dual and HIV-2-infected individuals exhibit higher levels of beta-chemokines and reduced immune cell activation compared to HIV-1 mono-infections. These unique immune signatures may imply that HIV-2 infections are associated with elevated levels of beta-chemokines, which could potentially limit infectivity of HIV-1 during dual infections. Additionally, the reduced immune cell activation seen in HIV-2 and HIV-dual infections could contribute to slower disease progression. It has been established that immune activation plays a major role in disease progression during HIV-1 mono-infections. This data was generated by quantifying plasma cytokine levels among HIV-1, HIV-2, HIV-dual and HIV-negative participants in Ghana and Togo. Analyses performed include statistical comparison between various study groups using Kruskal Wallis test followed by Dunn's post-hoc analysis.