Isolation of CD4+ T Cells from HIV+ Donors

Peripheral blood was obtained from HIV infected donors and processed for peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) to prepare CD4⁺ T lymphocytes. The donors had been chronically HIV-infected with baseline viral loads between 40,000 and 500,000 copies HIV RNA/mL plasma before receiving ART and being suppressed below 50 copies for all measurements for at least 1 year. All had > 500 CD4 cells/μL blood at the time of donation, which followed a UCSD Institutional Review Board informed written consent. PBMC were isolated using density gradient centrifugation from whole blood. Total CD4+ T cells were enriched from PBMC by negative selection using Stem Cell Technologies EasySep CD4 Enrichment kit previously described [7 (link)].