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T. E. Cloke, L. Garvey, B.-S. Choi, T. Abebe, A. Hailu, M. Hancock, U. Kadolsky, C. R. M. Bangham, M. Munder, I. Müller, G. P. Taylor, P. Kropf, Increased Level of Arginase Activity Correlates with Disease Severity in HIV-Seropositive Patients, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 202, Issue 3, 1 August 2010, Pages 374–385, https://doi.org/10.1086/653736
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Abstract
Infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) results in a chronic infection that progressively impairs the immune system. Although depletion of CD4+ T cells is frequently used to explain immunosuppression, chronicity of infection and progressive loss of CD4+ T cells are not sufficient to fully account for immune dysregulation. Arginase-induced l-arginine deprivation is emerging as a key mechanism for the down-regulation of immune responses. Here, we hypothesized that the level of arginase activity increases with disease severity in HIV-seropositive patients. We determined the levels of arginase activity in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from HIV-seropositive patients and uninfected control participants. Our results show that peripheral blood mononuclear cells from HIV-seropositive patients with low CD4+ T cell counts expressed statistically significantly higher levels of arginase activity, compared with patients with high CD4+ T cell counts or uninfected control participants. Furthermore, we found a statistically significant correlation between high level of arginase activity and high viral load in HIV-seropositive patients.