HIV-exposed uninfected infants: elevated cord blood Interleukin 8 (IL-8) is significantly associated with maternal HIV infection and systemic IL-8 in a Kenyan cohort

Clinical and Translational Medicine

Table 2 Infant cord blood plasma mediators from HIV-Unexposed infants compared to HIV-exposed uninfected infants

Mediator, pg/ml	LLD	HIV unexposed (HU)		HIV exposed uninfected (HEU)		p^b
Mediator, pg/ml	LLD	n^a	Median (IQR)	n^a	Median (IQR)	p^b
Pro-inflammatory
IL-6	0.2	17	1 (1–6)	29	24 (2–155)	0.001
IL-23	8.0	16	8 (8–16)	30	8 (8–8)	0.001
IL-1β	0.5	18	4 (1–39)	28	7 (0.5–102)	0.800
TNF-α	0.4	19	18 (15–26)	30	15 (9–38)	0.300
Chemotactic
IL-8/CXCL8	0.3	19	13 (7–26)	29	748 (93–1882)	< 0.001
CXCL11	1.5	19	372 (279–428)	30	154 (65–254)	< 0.0001
CCL3	0.3	19	34 (17–70)	30	176 (29–1901)	0.030
CCL4	1.0	19	67 (61–121)	22	71 (290–152)	0.600
CCL20	0.6	19	40 (27–57)	26	47 (32–133)	0.100
CX3CL1	18.0	17	18 (18–28)	30	18 (18–18)	0.006
Immunoregulatory
IL-21	0.2	15	0.2 (0.2–0.2)	30	0.7 (0.3–2.2)	0.001
IL-7	0.4	19	6 (2–13)	30	2 (0.4–4)	0.003
Th2
IL-5	0.5	17	0.6 (0.5–0.9)	30	0.5 (0.5–0.5)	< 0.0001
IL-10	1.5	16	1.5 (1.5–7)	29	3 (1.5–6)	0.100
GM-CSF	1.2	19	7 (3–13)	30	5 (1.2–17)	0.700

The following cytokines were below the assay limit of detection in both populations: IFNγ, IL-12(p70), IL-13, IL-17α, IL-2 and IL-4
LLD lower limit of test kit detection, pg/ml
^aNumber samples with valid results
^bBonferroni correction for multiple comparisons was applied; p < 0.003 was considered significant