Increased interleukin-7 plasma levels are associated with recovery of CD4+ T cells in HIV-infected children.

To asses the role of interleukin 7 (IL-7) in the thymic reconstitution of CD4 T cells observed in children after successful antiretroviral therapy, a longitudinal study in five vertically HIV-1-infected children was carried out. Thymic function, IL-7 plasma levels, viral load, and T-lymphocytes subsets were determined every 2 or 3 months for about 90 months. In all the children, the drop in CD4+ T cells below 5-10% was associated with a marked increase in IL-7 plasma levels. The drastic decrease in viral load after treatment, led in all the cases to a recover of CD4 to levels higher than 30%, which was associated to an increase in thymic production of T cells and followed by a decrease in IL-7 to the normal levels. We conclude that the drop in CD4 in HIV children would induce an increase of IL-7 as part of a homeostatic mechanism. IL-7 would induce the thymus to produce new T cells to recover the normal levels of CD4 when the viral load was low and so the thymic function was not inhibited. The increase in the thymic production of new T cells recovers the CD4 population, and leads to a normalization of IL-7 levels.