Current HIV Research - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2012

The 30 years of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic have been marked by many triumphs. Today, thanks to life-saving anti-retroviral medications, patients are living longer than ever. However, despite scientific advances in the field of HIV treatment, HIV prevention has had less success. Despite efforts on several fronts, the number of new HIV diagnoses each year in the United States is unchanged. In this review, Read More

Implementation of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has deeply changed the landscape of HIVassociated malignancies. Some AIDS-defining tumors, namely Primitive Lymphoma of Central Nervous System, have drastically declined, whereas a steady increase has been observed for non-AIDS-defining tumors, maybe due to longer survival of HIV-infected people. Easier immune restoration, subsequent to availabilit Read More

Viral diversity plays an important role in the pathogenesis of HIV disease. However, within an individual, HIV can vary substantially from one tissue or cell type to another, thereby creating viral compartments. HIV compartmentalization has been well documented in the brain, cerebrospinal fluid, and genital tract, although there are also data for viral compartmentalization within the gut, lung, liver, kidney, and breast milk. The pre Read More

Interleukin 7 (IL7) is a critical factor for lymphocyte homeostasis. A dysfunction of the IL7/IL7R pathway has previously been described in HIV-1 infection, and promising results were observed in recent analyses of IL7 for therapeutic use in HIV infected individuals. However, further investigations are still warranted to understand the possible roles of this cytokine. Here, we explored whether the IL7 and IL7RA genetic Read More

CRF_BC recombinant strains were first identified in China and are one of the most prevalent and characteristically unique HIV-1 subtypes across China. Here we aim to review the published data about HIV-1 CRF_BC recombinant strains epidemic in China and to characterize the genetics, biology and drug resistance of this virus. This study may help to better understand the current situation of HIV-1 CRF_BC prevalence and Read More

Sildenafil is increasingly used for the therapy of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in HIV infected patients. However, concerns exist about pharmacokinetic interactions between sildenafil and protease inhibitors (PI); in particular, ritonavir has been shown to increase sildenafil AUC and Cmax by several folds. The aim of our study was to determine the plasma levels of sildenafil and PI in two HIV patients with PAH treated Read More

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected individuals are prone to malnutrition, and deficiencies of some minerals and vitamins. The aim of this study is to evaluate the frequency of vitamin D deficiency and determine the possible risk factors associated with this problem in HIV-infected individuals. This cross-sectional study was performed on 98 adult patients referred to the Emam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran, Ira Read More

Long-term potent activity of antiretrovirals is essential for HIV-1-infected, treatment-experienced patients. TITAN (TMC114/r In Treatment-experienced pAtients Naive to lopinavir) compared Week-96 efficacy and safety of darunavir/ritonavir (DRV/r) versus lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r). Treatment-experienced, LPV-naive, HIV-1-infected patients were randomised to DRV/r 600/100 mg bid or LPV/r 400/100 mg bid plus opti Read More

Enfuvirtide (T20), the first FDA approved fusion inhibitor for HIV-1/AIDS, displayed outstanding effects of fusion inhibition by binding to the envelope glycoprotein gp41. But with the continuous emergence of T20-resistant mutations, the exploration of T20's binding mechanism onto gp41 wild type (WT) and the related resistance mechanism is needed. In this work, a complete structure model of gp41 including the fusion peptide (FP Read More