Current HIV Research - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2006

Current HIV Research begins its fourth volume providing our readers with stimulating, timely, and in-depth articles on current HIV and AIDS research. I take this opportunity to thank the authors for providing such insightful reviews and original scientific findings. Current HIV Research received its first Impact Factor (1.571) from the 2004 SCI Journal Citation Reports with each issue indexed in Chemical Abstracts, BIOSIS, Read More

BACKGROUND: Threats by enforced Intellectual Property (IP) rights to equitable HIV treatment access by poor populations are impending. India and China's policy directions in the field will be crucial in ultimately affecting the affordability and accessibility of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy in the under-served markets. These directions, together with the exploitation level of IP-bound flexibilities and the evolutionary modelling in pa Read More

In recent years, there has been an alarming increase in the number of cases of coinfection with the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and the hepatitis C virus (HCV). It is now known that coinfection of HIV-1 patients by HCV can complicate the treatment of these patients with highly active antiretroviral therapy and the interactions between anti-HIV-1 and anti-HCV medications can also affect treatment efficacy and ef Read More

Uracil in DNA is a deleterious event that may arise either by cytosine deamination or misincorporation of dUTP. Consequently, cells from all free-living organisms have developed strategies to protect their genome against the presence of uracils, by using uracil DNA glycosylase (UNG) and deoxyuridine triphosphatase (dUTPase) enzymatic activities. In the viral kingdom, some (namely poxviruses and herpesviruses) but not a Read More

In HIV-1 infected cells, over 40 different mRNA species are produced by alternative splicing of the single HIV-1 primary RNA transcript. In addition, approximately half of the HIV-1 primary RNA transcripts are not spliced and are exported to the cytoplasm where they serve as mRNA and as genomic RNA. In this article, we will review current knowledge of the mechanisms by which the HIV-1 alternative splicing is regulated. Se Read More

The nef gene is conserved among primate lentiviruses and is one of the first viral genes that is transcribed following infection. This suggests a critical role for Nef in the virus life cycle and in the pathogenesis of lentiviral infections. In vitro, several functions have been described, including down regulation of CD4 and MHC class I surface expression, altered T-cell signaling and activation, and enhanced viral infectivity. Howev Read More

Within the initial weeks following transmission, HIV-1 becomes well established in the lymphatic tissue reservoir. Replication of the virus occurs throughout the course of infection despite the induction of a vigorous adaptive immune response by the host. The emergence of variants with particular characteristics correlates with increased viral burden and disease progression, indicating that the fitness of the infecting virus Read More

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens, especially those including protease inhibitors have been shown to cause, in a high proportion of HIV-infected patients, a metabolic syndrome (lipodystrophy/lipoatrophy, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes mellitus, insulin resistance) that may be associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. A careful stratification of the cardiovascular risk of HIVinfected patients und Read More

One of the major health problems among HIV - infected patients is the intestinal parasite infestations. It can be seen that intestinal helminth infestation in HIV - infected patients is common. However, the reported prevalence is usually similar to those of non HIV-infected patients in the same setting. The infestations are ordinary not opportunistic, hence, thus usually show no correlation to immune status of the patients. Read More

Objective: New onset diabetes mellitus type 2 is increasing among HIV-infected patients in the era of potent antiretroviral therapy. Accurately identifying HIV-infected patients with a diagnosis of diabetes in electronic medical record systems will facilitate the study of patients with this disease. Study Design And Setting: We examined electronic medical record data for all patients who initiated care at an HIV clinic betwe Read More

Thrombocytopenia is a common hematologic disorder in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and represents a risk for bleeding which is further deleterious during surgery. The major causes of the thrombocytopenia include accelerated peripheral platelet destruction by antiplatelet antibodies and insufficient production of platelets from the infected megakaryocytes. Additionally, at an earlier stage of p Read More