Both hydroxyurea (HU) and structured treatment interruptions (STI) have been investigated as therapeutic approaches to enhance immune responses in chronically HIV-infected individuals. HIV-specific T cell responses as well as T cell activation were analyzed longitudinally in 31 HIV-infected individuals who had been treated for the prior 12 months with didanosine (ddI) plus HU and thereafter completed three STI cycles consisting of 2 months off and 2 months on ddI-HU. Similar increases in plasma HIV-RNA were seen in each of the three cycles off therapy, whereas CD4 counts remained fairly stable along the study period. T cell activation paralleled the evolution of plasma HIV-RNA during the first STI cycle and waned afterward. At baseline most patients presented a high level of CD8+ responses to different HIV peptide pools and 23% of them had CD4+ responses to Gag and/or Env. The level of CD8+ responses against each pool was stable and did not increase during STI cycles, while CD4 responses tended to decline. However, the contribution of Nef-specific response to the total CD8 response tended to increase. In a multivariate model, both a higher baseline plasma HIV-RNA and a higher level of Nef-specific response contribution to the total CD8+ response were independently associated with lower plasma HIV-RNA increases during each of the three STI cycles. Nef-specific CD8+ responses might contribute to a better virological control of HIV replication following treatment interruptions in HIV-infected individuals and might be boosted by the immunomodulatory effect of HU.