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Immunology of Infectious Disease Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Immunology of Infectious Disease

Multistrain Hiv-1 Elimination: A Crispr-Cas9 And Theranostics-Based Approach, Jonathan Herskovitz Dec 2020

Multistrain Hiv-1 Elimination: A Crispr-Cas9 And Theranostics-Based Approach, Jonathan Herskovitz

Theses & Dissertations

A critical barrier to achieving a functional cure for infection by human immunodeficiency virus type one (HIV-1) rests in the presence of latent proviral DNA integrated in the nuclei of host CD4+ T cells and mononuclear phagocytes. Accordingly, HIV-1-infected patients must adhere to lifelong regimens of antiretroviral therapy (ART) to prevent viral rebound, CD4+ T cell decline, and progression to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Gene editing using clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-Cas9 technology stands as one means to inactivate integrated proviral DNA. We devised a mosaic gRNA CRISPR-Cas9 system- TatDE- that targets viral transcriptional regulator genes tat / …


Designing A Novel Hiv-1 Candidate Vaccine, Rahul Pawa Apr 2020

Designing A Novel Hiv-1 Candidate Vaccine, Rahul Pawa

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Currently no vaccine has been developed that can prevent the spread of HIV-1. During sexual transmission, a single viral variant called the Transmitted/Founder (T/F) purportedly with unique physical properties, establishes infection in 70-80% of individuals. Unlike previous studies that have tried to identify T/F viruses based on their structure glycan composition and amino acid sequence, we have analyzed the RNA sequences of HIV-1 to help identify T/F variants. Using a combination of both in silico data analysis and in vitro assays, we have identified that T/F viruses have higher numbers of immunostimulatory motifs than HIV virions that fail to infect. …