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Updated: Nov 9, 2025
Oral Combinational Antiretroviral Treatment in HIV-1 Infected Humanized Mice
Published on: October 6, 2022
Altered subcutaneous adipose tissue parameters after switching ART-controlled HIV+ patients to raltegravir/maraviroc
Jean-Philippe Bastard1,2, Véronique Pelloux3,4, Rohia Alili3,4
1Sorbonne Université, Inserm, Faculty of Medicine, Centre de Recherche Saint-Antoine (CRSA), ICAN, Paris.
Objective:
To evaluate the effect on anthropometric, metabolic and adipose tissue parameters of switching ART-controlled persons living with HIV (PLWH) from a protease inhibitor regimen to raltegravir/maraviroc.
Design:
Sub-study of the ANRS157 ROCnRAL study with the investigation of subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue (SCAT) biopsy at inclusion and study end.
Methods:
We performed lipoaspiration of paired SCAT samples, histology on fresh/fixed samples and examined the transcriptomic profile analyzed using Illumina microarrays after RNA extraction. Statistical analyses used the Wilcoxon-paired test.
Results:
The patients (n = 8) were mainly male (7/8), aged (mean ± standard error of the mean) 54.9 ± 1.2 years, BMI 26.1 ± 1.2 kg/m2, CD4+ 699 ± 56 cells/mm3, all viral load (VL) <50 copies/ml. After a follow-up of 6 ± 0.5 months, all PLWH remained with VL <50 copies/ml. BMI, trunk and limb fat amounts were unchanged yet systemic insulin resistance increased. Adipose tissue histology was unchanged except for borderline increased adipocyte diameter (P = 0.1). Among the 16 094 RNA transcripts, 458 genes were up-regulated and 244 were down-regulated. Analyses of the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes and Gene Ontology databases, evaluating modifications in the main functional pathways, revealed that genes related to immune recognition/function were less expressed as were genes encoding T-cell receptor and receptor signaling pathways. The gene expression profiles indicated decreased inflammation but genes involved in adipogenesis and insulin resistance were overexpressed.
Conclusion:
After 6 months of raltegravir/maraviroc, adipogenesis-related gene profile was enhanced in SCAT, in agreement with a tendency for increased adipocyte size. Enhanced SCAT insulin resistance-related profile was concordant with higher systemic insulin resistance. However, the immune activation/inflammation profile was globally lowered. We propose that raltegravir/maraviroc might favor SCAT gain but reduce inflammation/immune activation.
