Immunology and Infectious Disease Commons^™

Proposing An Rna Interference (Rnai)-Based Treatment For Human Immunodeficiency Virus (Hiv) By Analyzing The Post-Transcriptional Gene Targeting Of Sars-Cov-2, Hepatitis C Virus, And A549 Lung Cancer Cells, Arjun Jagdeesh

Undergraduate Research Posters

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that infects CD4+ T cell lymphocytes in humans, leading to the development of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) if left untreated. While current treatment methods, including antiretroviral combination treatments, effectively limit HIV replication, HIV can evade these treatments due to its high mutation rate. Long-term antiretroviral treatment can also be toxic to patients, meaning patients would benefit from a new mechanism of HIV treatment. RNA interference (RNAi) is an antiviral pathway found in mammals, plants, and insects that involves a small-interfering RNA that is incorporated into a protein complex called the RNA-induced Silencing Complex …

Investigating The Pi3k/Akt/Atm Pathway, Telomeric Dna Damage, T Cell Death, And Crispr/Cas9-Mediated Gene Editing During Acute And Chronic Hiv Infection, Sushant Khanal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection initiates major metabolic and cell- survival complications. Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) is the current approach to suppress active HIV replication to a level of undetected viral load, but it is not a curative approach. Newer and sophisticated gene editing technologies could indeed be a potent antiviral therapy to achieve a clinical sterilization/cure of HIV infection. Chronic HIV patients, even under a successful ART regimen, exhibit a low-grade inflammation, immune senescence, premature aging, telomeric DNA attrition, T cell apoptosis, and cellular homeostasis. In this dissertation, we investigated CD4 T cell homeostasis, degree of T cell apoptosis, an …

Serpin-Derived Novel Peptide For The Treatment Against Hiv-Induced Inflammation In The Central Nervous System, Yemmy Soler

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the brain, HIV predominantly infects microglia/macrophages and astrocytes to a lesser extent. These cells form virus reservoirs with low levels of infection that are very hard to eradicate. Even though the use of cART increases survival rate in HIV patients, the virus persists as a chronic condition. cART is not able to effectively cross the BBB, control HIV replication, or attenuate inflammation in brain reservoirs. Therefore, the virus still causes neuronal dysfunction, pain-related pathology, and ultimately HAND. In this study, we decided to test the hypothesis that a serpin-derived small peptide, SP16, can serve as an anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, pro-survival, …

Understanding Exosomal Extracellular Vesicles And Morphine In The Neuropathology Of Human Immunodeficiency Virus And Differential Zika Virus Strain-Associated Pathology, Allen Caobi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Exosomal Extracellular Vesicles (xEVs), integral to intercellular communication and regulation of immune responses, have functional effects based on their contents, which they transport to neighboring cells. However, in the context of infection, EV cargo can be modulated, by either infected or uninfected cells. We hypothesize that CNS-associated neuropathology, is partially, due to the cargo transported by the exosomes. We theorize that the cargo released from infected cell-derived xEVs may either facilitate or inhibit viral neuropathogenicity. Here we investigated xEVs in the case of two neurotropic viruses, Zika virus (ZIKV) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The hallmark characteristic of ZIKV-infection is …

Global, Regional, And National Sex Differences In The Global Burden Of Tuberculosis By Hiv Status, 1990-2019: Results From The Global Burden Of Disease Study 2019, Jorge R. Ledesma, Hmwe Hmwe Kyu, Arianna Maever L. Amit, Veincent Christian F. Pepito, Gbd 2019 Tuberculosis Collaborators, 328 Co-Authors

Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health Publications

Background

Tuberculosis is a major contributor to the global burden of disease, causing more than a million deaths annually. Given an emphasis on equity in access to diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis in global health targets, evaluations of differences in tuberculosis burden by sex are crucial. We aimed to assess the levels and trends of the global burden of tuberculosis, with an emphasis on investigating differences in sex by HIV status for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019.

Methods

We used a Bayesian hierarchical Cause of Death Ensemble model (CODEm) platform to analyse 21 505 site-years of vital …

Food Insecurity Is Associated With Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, Cognitive Impairment, And Immune Activation In People Living With Hiv, Javier A. Tamargo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Food insecurity (FI) is a socioeconomic condition characterized by inadequate access to enough food and nutrition to sustain health and wellbeing. Food insecurity is a risk factor for chronic and age-related conditions, raising concerns for the aging population of people living with HIV (PLWH), in whom food insecurity is disproportionately prevalent. PLWH are at increased risk of nutrition-related complications and chronic co-morbidities, thus food insecurity may exacerbate adverse health outcomes in this population. This study investigated whether food insecurity was associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), cognitive impairment, and immune activation among socioeconomically disadvantaged adults living with and without …

Sequence-Independent Assay For Hiv Viral Load Quantitation, Omar El Merhebi

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Although nucleic acid tests (NATs) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) exhibit many advantages, such as early detection and viral load quantification, over immunological assays, their widespread use is limited by their demand for high-level infrastructure, sophisticated equipment, and advanced staff competence. Furthermore, when quantifying viral loads of patients, it has been reported that these assays can underestimate viral quantities by 22- to 100-fold due to primer-template mismatches in more divergent HIV subtypes. Therefore, we have developed a cost-effective and sequence-independent assay for the detection and quantification of HIV utilizing a modified nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA) protocol coupled to an …

Epigenetic Mechanisms Underlying Hiv-Infection Induced Susceptibility Of Cd4+ T Cells To Enhanced Activation-Induced Fasl Expression And Cell Death., Smita Ghare, Paula M. Chilton, Aakarsha V. Rao, Swati Joshi-Barve, Paula Peyrani, Andrea Reyes-Vega, Craig J. Mcclain, Kendall Bryant, Robert L. Cook, Mathew Freiberg, Shirish Barve

Faculty Scholarship

Background:

Chronic immune activation and CD4⁺ T cell depletion are significant pathogenic features of HIV infection. Expression of Fas ligand (FasL), a key mediator of activation-induced cell death in T cells, is elevated in people living with HIV-1 infection (PLWH). However, the epigenetic mechanisms underlying the enhanced induction of FasL expression in CD4⁺ T lymphocytes in PLWH are not completely elucidated. Hence, the current work examined the effect of HIV infection on FasL promoter-associated histone modifications and transcriptional regulation in CD4⁺ T lymphocytes in PLWH.

Method:

Flow cytometric analysis was performed to examine the Fas-FasL expression on …

Investigating The Interactions Between Individual Calmodulin And Hiv-1 Protein Domains, Riley K. Kendall, Jerry Larue

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The World Health Organization found that 37.9 million people were living with HIV by the end of 2018. HIV is a virus that weakens the immune system through viral replication and the destruction of CD4⁺ T-cells, which are white blood cells that detect infection and make antibodies. A cure for HIV has not yet been discovered. HIV-1 contains a Gag polyprotein which regulates the stages of viral replication. Previous studies suggest that the myristoyl group of a matrix protein peptide found on the Gag polyprotein, MA, forms a complex with a calcium-binding, multifunctional regulatory protein called Calmodulin (CaM). CaM …

Gender Differences In Virologic Response After Antiretroviral Therapy In Treatment-Naïve Hiv-Infected Individuals: Results From The 550 Clinic Hiv Cohort Study., Andrea Reyes-Vega, Alejandra Loban, Kavitha Srinivasan, Stephen P. Furmanek, Conner English, Mary Bishop, Cathy Spencer, Daniel Truelove, Julio A. Ramirez, Anupama Raghuram, Paula Peyrani

Faculty Scholarship

Background

Controversy still exists regarding gender differences in virologic response between treatment-na•ve HIV-infected individuals. The objective of this study was to evaluate gender difference in virologic and immunologic response to antiretroviral therapy in treatment-na•ve HIV-infected individuals. Methods

This was a retrospective, observational study of treatment-na•ve HIV-infected individuals managed at the 550 clinic who started antiretroviral therapy (ART) between January 1st, 2010 and December 31, 2015. Patients with available viral load and CD4 counts before and one year after initiating ART were included in this study. Virologic suppression was defined as < 48 HIV-1 RNA copies/mL, and mmunologic recovery was defined as a CD4 count increase of at least 150 cells/mm3. Dichotomous variables were reported in number and percentages and analyzed using Chi-squared tests and Fisher’s exact (whichever was appropriate). Continuous variables were reported as median and interquartile range (IQR) and analyzed using Wilcox rank-sum tests. Multivariate analyses performed were logistic regressions with adjustment for other covariates. P value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. R version 3.3.2 was used for the statistical analysis. Results

A total of 70 women and 90 men were included …

Structural And Functional Interactions Between Bro1 Domain Of Human Alix Protein And Nucleocapsid Packaging Rna Complex From Hiv, Scott Gross

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

A virus is only as powerful as its ability to spread. Enveloped retroviruses, namely HIV-1, use exocytosis pathways that normal host cells use to release particles from the plasma membrane. The main pathways of interest in this study are the Endosomal Sorting Complex Required for Transport (ESCRT) and adjacent ALIX pathways. The ESCRT pathway is especially important for degradation of receptor/cargo complexes that form Multi-Vesicular Bodies (MVBs). Currently, there is no known therapy that targets this endosomal pathway, which would prevent the spread of the virus to other cells. The virus has adapted to jump from pathway to pathway when …

Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels And C-Reactive Protein In Persons With Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection, C. Anderson Johnson, Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar, Krishna C. Poudel, Masamine Jimba, Jun Kobayashi, Paula Palmer

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has frequently been associated with vitamin D deficiency as well as chronic inflammatory response. We tested the hypothesis of an independent relationship between serum concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP) in a cohort of HIV-positive people. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 316 HIV-positive people (181 men and 135 women) aged 16 to 60 years residing in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Serum high-sensitivity CRP concentrations and serum 25(OH)D levels were measured by the latex agglutination nephelometry method and the competitive protein-binding assay, respectively. The relationship between serum CRP concentrations and 25(OH)D …

Study Guide For United In Anger: A History Of Act Up, Matt Brim

Open Educational Resources

The United in Anger Study Guide facilitates classroom and activist engagement with Jim Hubbard’s 2012 documentary, United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. The Study Guide contains discussion sections, projects and exercises, and resources for further research about the activism of the New York chapter of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). The Study Guide is a free, interactive, multimedia resource for understanding the legacy of ACT UP, the film’s role in preserving that legacy, and its meaning for viewers' lives.

Risky Behaviour And Hiv Prevalence Among Zambian Men, Nisha Malhotra, Jonathan Young

Nisha Malhotra

The objective of this paper is to identify demographic, social and behavioural risk factors for HIV infection among men in Zambia. In particular, the role of alcohol, condom use, and number of sex partners is highlighted as being significant in the prevalence of HIV. Multivariate Logistic Regressions were used to analyse the latest cross-sectional population-based demographic health survey for Zambia (2007). The survey included socio-economic variables and HIV serostatus for consenting men (N = 4,434). Risk for HIV was positively related to the wealth status. Men who considered themselves to be at high risk for HIV-positive were most likely to …

Preventing Mother-To-Child Transmission Of Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (Hiv-1): Effects Of Intrapartum And Neonatal Single-Dose Nevirapine Prophylaxis And Subsequent Hiv-1 Drug Resistance At Antiretroviral Treatment Initiation, Amanda L. Harmon

CMC Senior Theses

The prevention of mother-to-child transmission is one of the most powerful tools in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) prevention and has huge potential to improve both maternal and child health. In the absence of any preventative measures, infants born to and breastfed by their HIV-positive mothers have roughly a one-in-three chance of acquiring the infection themselves. HIV can be passed on from mother-to-child during pregnancy, during labor and delivery, and even after during breastfeeding.

Intrapartum and neonatal single-dose nevirapine (sd-NVP) is the foundation of preventing mother-to-child transmission in lower resource settings where it has been used alone or as …

Do Hospitalists Or Physicians With Greater Inpatient Hiv Experience Improve Hiv Care In The Era Of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy? Results From A Multicenter Trial Of Academic Hospitalists, John A. Schneider, Qi Zhang, Andrew Auerbach, David Gonzales, Peter Kaboli, Jeffrey Schnipper, Tosha B. Wetterneck, David L. Pitrak, David O. Meltzer

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Background. Little is known about the effect of provider type and experience on outcomes, resource use, and processes of care of hospitalized patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Hospitalists are caring for this population with increasing frequency.

Methods. Data from a natural experiment in which patients were assigned to physicians on the basis of call cycle was used to study the effects of provider type—that is, hospitalist versus non hospitalist—and HIV-specific inpatient experience on resource use, outcomes, and selected measures of processes of care at 6 academic institutions. Administrative data, inpatient interviews, 30-day follow-up interviews, and the National Death …

Aids: Prophecy And Present Reality, Victor De Gruttola, William Ira Bennett

New England Journal of Public Policy

Mathematical modeling of the AIDS epidemic can be useful for policymakers even though precise projections are not possible at this time. Models are useful in establishing ranges for current and future prevalence of HIV infection and incidence of AIDS, as well as in predicting the effect of a given intervention strategy. Most decision makers are using models implicitly when they use epidemiological information as a basis for policy; formulating a model explicitly permits examination of the underlying assumptions. By creating and testing a variety of models, an investigator can determine whether the models reflect more the underlying assumptions or the …