Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Diseases
Sequence-Independent Assay For Hiv Viral Load Quantitation, Omar El Merhebi
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 …
Retrocyclin Rc-101 Overcomes Cationic Mutations On The Heptad Repeat 2 Of Hiv-1 Gp41, Christopher Fuhrman
Retrocyclin Rc-101 Overcomes Cationic Mutations On The Heptad Repeat 2 Of Hiv-1 Gp41, Christopher Fuhrman
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Retrocyclin RC-101, a θ-defensin with lectin-like properties, potently inhibits infection by many HIV-1 subtypes by binding to the heptad repeat (HR)-2 region of gp41 and preventing six-helix bundle formation. In the present study, we used in silico computational exploration to identify residues of HR2 that interacted with RC-101 and then analyzed the HIV-1 Sequence Database at LANL for residue variations in the HR1 and HR2 segments that could plausibly impart in vivo resistance. Docking RC-101 to gp41 peptides in silico confirmed its strong preference for HR2 over HR1, and implicated residues crucial for its ability to bind HR2. We mutagenized …