Impact of HIV co-infection on immunological biomarker profile of HTLV-1 infected patients.

• Co-infection HTLV-1/HIV impacted the biomarker profile of HTLV patients. • Increase in the inflammatory response is hallmarked in the presence of co-infection. • HAM(+) patients are characterized by higher levels of CXCL8, CCL2, CXCL-10 and TNF. The impact of HIV co-infection on the plasma immunological biomarker profile of HTLV-1 infected patients was evaluated. The plasma levels of leukotrienes and chemokines/cytokines were quantified by ELISA and Cytometric Bead Array. A total of 138 volunteers were enrolled and divided into two subgroups ("HTLV-1(+)HIV(-)" and "HTLV-1(+)(HIV(+)"), which were categorized according to the HTLV-1-associated neurological disease (AS, pHAM and HAM). Reference controls were BD and HIV mono-infected patients. HAM(+) exhibited higher CD4+ T-cell counts as compared to HIV+ mono-infected patients and lower HTLV-1 proviral load as compared to mono-infected HAM(-) patients. AS(+) exhibited higher levels of CysLT, CXCL8/IL-8 and lower levels of CCL5/RANTES as compared to AS(-). Increased levels of IL-6 and TNF with reduced levels of CXCL10/IP10 and CCL5/RANTES were observed in co-infected pHAM(+) as compared to mono-infected pHAM(-). HAM(+) patients revealed an increase in CXCL8/IL-8, CCL2/MCP-1, CXCL-10/IP-10, TNF and a decrease in IL-2 as compared to HAM(-) subgroup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]