Effects of G-CSF on telomere lengths in PBMCs from human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients: results from a randomized, placebo-controlled trial

Telomeres are unique terminal chromosomal structures, the length of which has been shown to decrease with cell division in vitro and with increased age in vivo for human somatic cells. In human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 infection, decrease of telomere length is primarily found in CD8+ T cells, and not in CD4+ T cells. In this double-blind placebo-controlled study, we investigated the effect of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) treatment combined with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on mean telomere length in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). The terminal restriction fragment (TRF) length showed no changes during G-CSF treatment although the number of lymphocytes increased significantly. The mean TRF length correlated positively (R = 0.552, P = 0.009) and negatively (R = -0.503, P = 0.02) to the proportion of CD4+ memory and naïve cells, respectively. Our data suggest that during G-CSF treatment lymphocytes are recruited by a combination of central and peripheral proliferation.