Current HIV Research - Volume 7, Issue 3, 2009

Full text available

After the infusion of HIV-1 virus into a host cell, RNA is reverse transcribed to dsDNA, which persists intracellular to the infected cell in a variety of forms. Numerous in-house assays have been developed for the quantification of the different cellular HIV-1 DNA forms; these implement conventional or real-time PCR methodology. In this review we discuss recent findings about the longitudinal monitoring of cell-associated Read More

The functional impairment of HIV-specific CD4+ T cells during chronic HIV infection is thought to be closely linked to viral replication and to T cell exhaustion. T cell exhaustion in the presence of ongoing antigen exposure is a common feature of chronic viral infection, in which dysfunctional T cells fail to eliminate the virus. Otherwise, antiviral T cell function impairment is a poorly understood mechanism. Increasing evidences s Read More

Antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS patients are used globally including in resource-limited settings. Successful outcomes are not always observed and HIV resistance to antiretroviral agents is a major cause of treatment failure. Both primary and secondary drug resistance have been described and reported worldwide. Primary resistance, which presumably means that individuals are infected with drug-resistant virus and second Read More

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) leading to the diseased state Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases caused by various microorganisms are posing a major threat to humankind. Hence there is an urgent need for controlling its spread. In 2008, about 30 million people are living with HIV infection in the world. Heterosexual transmission particularly affecting woman is driving Read More

To determine the outcome of HIV infection in children in a resource-limited setting, a retrospective analysis of a series of 51 pediatric cases from the Serbian cohort of HIV infected patients was performed. Twenty seven patients died in the pre-HAART era, but mono/dual antiretroviral treatment had significantly (p=0.046) prolonged survival. Of the total of 24 HAART-treated patients, 10 had clinical AIDS before HAART i Read More

Virakinetics II was designed as an observational, multicenter cohort study conducted in HIV-positive patients treated with NFV-based combinations. Trough (pre-dose) concentrations of NFV+M8 in plasma were determined using a novel ELISA test (NFV TDM-ELISA®) and analyzed using clinical and laboratory parameters. Drug levels were sorted as below, within or above a given interval (<0.8 μg/mL, 0.8-3.5 μg/mL and >3.5 μg/ Read More

During replication, HIV-1 reverse transcriptase lacks proof reading activity and is error prone. In addition APOBEC-driven hypermutation of HIV-1 Gag and Pol genes may generate replication-deficient viral variants with inframe stop codons. Virus variants with several stop codons in the RT gene were identified in a subject with residual HIV- 1 replication during antiretroviral treatment. A role for the T-cell response in the sele Read More

A reversal of key HIV protease mutations against tipranavir has been observed in a patient undergoing a late salvage antiretroviral therapy. Our patient initially introduced tipranavir/ritonavir in absence of an optimized background and novel drug classes, and nevertheless he experienced a virological-immunological benefit. Our report is a contribution to the present debate around the role of each single HIV protease mutatio Read More

Mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy provides a unique system for studying the correlation between HLA phenotype and susceptibility to HIV infection. We studied this relationship in a Spanish cohort. We determined frequencies of HLA class I and II alleles in 120 infants born to HIV-infected mothers and 67 HIV-infected mothers. Although there was no statistical difference in the frequency of HLA-B35 between trans Read More

Background: We investigated the virologic and immunologic responses to a mono-class, nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor - combination therapy consisting of tenofovir and zidovudine/lamivudine/abacavir in therapy experienced patients. Methods: Retrospective study of 122 patients. Primary analysis was performed at 48 weeks. Virologic response was defined as viral load levels less than 400 copies/ml. R Read More

We recently described that the chloroxoquinolinic ribonucleoside 6-chloro-1,4-dihydro-4-oxo-1-(β-Dribofuranosyl) quinoline-3-carboxylic acid (compound A) inhibits the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) enzyme reverse transcriptase (RT), and its replication in primary cells. Based on these findings, we performed kinetic studies to investigate the mode of inhibition of compound A and its aglycan analog (comp Read More

An increase of the mean corpuscular volume of the red blood cells has been repeatedly described in antiretroviral treated patients. Most commonly macrocytosis was associated with the use of certain nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. The aim of this study was to analyse if macrocytosis might be a marker of mitochondrial toxicity in antiretrovirally treated HIV-infected patients. Using the 13C-methionine bre Read More

CD4 T cell recovery after highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has been reported mostly from developed countries. A retrospective cohort study was conducted among naïve HIV-infected patients initiating HAART between July 1, 2001 and December 31, 2004 at Chiang Mai University, Thailand. We evaluated the CD4 cell count recovery over 4 years among patients initiated HAART at low (CD4 count 51-200 cells/mm3) a Read More

Shared transmission routes of HCV and HIV mean parenteral HIV/HCV coinfection still occurs, often in resource- limited settings. The extent to which coinfection and treatment impact on morbidity and mortality in HIV/HCV coinfected children remains unknown thus optimal management and treatment is difficult to achieve. Using data from a unique, large, prospective cohort of parenterally HIV/HCV coinfected children in Read More