Characterization of anti-nuclear autoantibodies in Sudanese Patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus after HAART receiving: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Background: HIV infection triggers chronic inflammation and disrupts B and T lymphocyte function. It causes widespread B cell activation and molecular mimicry of viral proteins. Surprisingly, high antiretroviral therapy (HAART) leads to immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), autoantibody production, and potentially autoimmune diseases. This study aimed to investigate the proportion of antinuclear autoantibodies (ANA) in HIV-infected patients and their clinical significance Method: One hundred and sixteen (116) serum samples from HIV-infected patients were subsequently admitted to a military hospital. Voluntary Testing and Counseling (VTC) A clinical center in the Sudanese state of Khartoum was tested for ANA screening, clinically significant autoantibodies were defined as ANA titers. ≥1/80. Result: 116 confirmed HIV patients, all receiving Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy, were screened for ANA autoantibodies using hep2 cell indirect immunofluorescent technique, using titer 1 80 as the cutoff point for autoantibodies detection out of 116 HIV-infected patients 85/116 (73.3%) showed positivity for ANA. Without a doubt, the proportion of ANA positivity among the female group tends to be higher than the male group 36/45 (80%) and 49/71 (69%), respectively, but there are no significant statistical differences (p = 0.206). Interestingly, a high proportion of positivity for ANA was found in the older subject group (>60 years) 5/5 (100%) and all the older groups were positive for ANA. Furthermore, the study also showed that the predominant ANA patterns were fine speckled nuclear (56.5%) and cytoplasmic fine granules (21.2%). Conclusion: This study suggests that HIV-induced chronic inflammation may trigger the production of pf autoantibodies with variable specificities, this may be due to molecular mimicry or polyclonal activation, and HAART treatment may contribute to these long-term effects, particularly during IRIS.