Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART)-Related Hypertriglyceridemia Is Associated With Failure of Recovery of CD14(low)CD16(+) Monocyte Subsets in AIDS Patients

As cellular reservoirs, CD16(+) monocyte subsets play important roles in the progression of HIV infection. Previous studies have shown that highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) reduced the percentages of CD14(high)CD16(+) monocyte subsets, but did not recover the percentages of CD14(low)CD16(+) subsets. Eighty-four chronic HIV-infected, HAART-naïve individuals and 55 HIV-negative subjects (31 without hyperlipidemia and 24 with hypertriglyceridemia) were enrolled. Plasma HIV-1 RNA levels, CD4(+) T-cell counts, triglycerides, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, and low-density lipoprotein were followed up for 48 weeks during HAART treatment in the longitudinal study. We found that mild hypertriglyceridemia in HIV-negative subjects and HIV-infected patients, naïve to HAART, did not affect the percentage of monocyte subsets. However, a failure of CD14(low)CD16(+) subset recovery was observed in patients with HAART-related hypertriglyceridemia at 48 weeks. Thus, HAART-related hypertriglyceridemia altered homeostasis of monocyte subsets to antiviral therapy, which might further affect immune reconstitution.