Current HIV Research - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2004

HIV-related morbidity and mortality have been dramatically improved in populations treated with combination antiretroviral therapy. Although it is widely recognized that adherence to the antiretroviral medication regimens is vital to treatment success, rates of adherence to the regimens are often poor. There is a large body of research exploring the problem of adherence to antiretroviral medications. The literature is, to date, Read More

In the current era of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), the prevalence of HIV-associated non-Hodgkin lymphoma (H-NHL) is not as high as in the beginning of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic, but still remains above that of non-HIV-infected individuals. Therefore, the epidemiology suggests that the pathogenesis of H-NHL may be multifactoral, involving the interaction of the immune syst Read More

Recent advances in our understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of HIV-1 entry provide the basis for novel therapeutic strategies that prevent viral penetration of the target cell-membrane, while reducing detrimental virus and treatment effects on cells and prolonging virion exposure to immune defenses. A number of potential sites for therapeutic intervention become accessible during the narrow window be Read More

Immune Restoration Diseases (IRD) are a collection of atypical 'opportunistic infections' and inflammatory diseases seen in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients after HIV viraemia is suppressed by highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). IRD probably reflect dysregulated immune responses against pre-existing infections by opportunistic pathogens, with different immunopathological mechanis Read More

Neutralizing antibody titers have been correlated with protection following vaccination against many viral pathogens. The logical target of protective antibody responses elicited by potential HIV vaccines should be the viral Env spike on the surface of the virion. However, the potency and titers of neutralizing antibodies that arise during HIV infection are generally discouragingly low and the antibodies that do arise recogniz Read More

The Vpu protein is the smallest of the proteins encoded by human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). This transmembrane protein interacts with the CD4 molecule in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER), resulting in its degradation via the proteasome pathway. Vpu also has been shown to enhance virion release from infected cells. While much has been learned about the function of Vpu in cell culture systems, its Read More

Superinfection is defined as infection by a second virus during an immunologic steady state, following infection by a primary virus. It is now well established that superinfection with HIV-1 occurs in humans. Detection of an increasing number of circulating recombinant forms, which result from infection of a cell by two or more clades, suggests that superinfection occurs more frequently than previously thought. The second virus Read More

Hematopoietic abnormalities including anemia, cytopenias, and alterations of the stem cell plasticity in the bone marrow microenvironment commonly occur in HIV infected patients. These observations suggest that HIV-1 infection may affect processes important during early stages of hematopoiesis or stem cell differentiation. Hematopoietic abnormalities may be caused by altered stem cell differentiation possibly due Read More

Resistance to antiretroviral drugs is associated with reduced treatment options and, therefore, increased risk of disease progression or death. Despite the main goal of antiretroviral therapy should be achievement of complete suppression of HIV replication, the accumulation of resistance mutations in patients with multiple treatment failure makes this objective often difficult, or even impossible to obtain. Thus, clinicians sho Read More