Johannes Nemeth, Valentina Vongrad, Karin J Metzner, Victoria P Strouvelle, Rainer Weber, Patrick Pedrioli, Ruedi Aebersold, Huldrych F Günthard, Ben C Collins

Host directed therapies against HIV-1 are thought to be critical for long term containment of the HIV-1 pandemic but remain elusive. Since HIV-1 infects and manipulates important effectors of both the innate and adaptive immune system, identifying modulations of the host cell systems in humans during HIV-1 infection may be crucial for the development of immune based therapies. Here, we quantified the changes of the proteome in human CD4+ T cells upon HIV-1 infection, both in vitro and in vivo. A SWATH-MS approach was used to measure the proteome of human primary CD4+ T cells infected with HIV-1 in vitro as well as CD4+ T cells from HIV-1 infected patients with paired samples on and off antiretroviral treatment. In the in vitro experiment, the proteome of CD4+ T cells was quantified over a time course following HIV-1 infection. 1,725 host cell proteins and 4 HIV-1 proteins were quantified, with 145 proteins changing significantly during the time course. Changes in the proteome peaked 24 hours after infection, concomitantly with significant HIV-1 protein production. In the in vivo branch of the study, CD4+ T cells from viremic patients and those with no detectable viral load after treatment were sorted and the proteomes quantified. We consistently detected 895 proteins, 172 of which were considered to be significantly different between viraemic patients and patients undergoing successful treatment. The proteome of in vitro infected CD4+ T cells was modulated on multiple functional levels, including TLR-4 signalling and the type 1 interferon signalling pathway. Perturbations in the type 1 interferon signalling pathway were recapitulated in CD4+ T cells from patients. The study shows that proteome maps generated by SWATH-MS indicate a range of functionally significant changes in the proteome of HIV infected human CD4+ T cells. Exploring these perturbations in more detail may help identify new targets for immune based interventions.