ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE APOPTOSIS OF CD4~+ THYMUS DEPENDENT LYMPHOCYTE IN HIV-INFECTED SUBJECTS AND THE PROGRESSION OF HIV INFECTION

[Objective] To measure the absolute counts and the apoptosis of CD4+ thymus dependent lymphocyte(CD4+ T lymphocyte) in HIV-infected subjects and analyze its correlation. [Methods] Flow cytometry was used to measure the percentage of apoptotic CD4+ T lymphocyte in HIV-infected subjects and HIV-negative health subjects,and the variance between two groups was analyzed by rank sum test. Flow cytometry was also used to measure the absolute counts of CD4+ T lymphocyte in HIV-infected subjects,and the correlation between the absolute counts and the percentage of apoptotic CD4+ T lymphocyte in HIV-infected subjects was analyzed by rank correlation analysis. [Results] The percentage of apoptotic CD4+ T lymphocyte in HIV-infected subjects(6.75% ± 2.30%) was much higher than that of apoptotic CD4+ T lymphocyte in control subjects(2.82% ± 0.92%) (z =-5.410,P﹤0.01) . In HIV-infected subjects,the percentage of apoptotic CD4+ T lymphocyte was highly negative correlated to the absolute counts of CD4+ T lymphocyte(r =-0.884,P﹤0.01) . [Conclusion] The decrease of the absolute counts of CD4+ T lymphocyte in HIV-infected subjects is close related to the apoptosis of CD4+ T lymphocyte. The detection of the percentage of apoptotic CD4+ T lymphocyte in HIV-infected subjects is helpful to predict the progression of HIV infection.