So far, recombinant antigens of HIV-1, the etiologic cause of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), have been widely used for the diagnosis and vaccine development. P17 or the matrix protein formed by the proteolytic cleavage of gag is strongly antigenic and is as conserved and immunogenic as p24. In some cases, antibodies to p17 are more prevalent than antibodies to p24 and the decline in...

A major factor in the design of highly sensitive ligandbinding assays is the need to accelerate the interaction between analyte and binding partner (or capture reagent). In early immunoassay technologies, overnight incubations with exogenously supplied binding partners at low temperatures (typically 2–8 °C) were common. More recently, however, assay results are frequently required, for both med...

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA and p24 antigen concentrations were determined in plasma samples from 169 chronically infected patients (median CD4 cell count, 140 cells/microL; range, 0-1500 cells/microL). p24 quantification involved heat-mediated immune complex dissociation and tyramide signal amplification-boosted ELISA, which has a diagnostic sensitivity similar to that of R...

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) can induce potent gene silencing by degradation of cognate mRNA. However, in dividing cells, the silencing lasts only 3 to 7 days, presumably because of siRNA dilution with cell division. Here, we investigated if sustained siRNA-mediated silencing of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is possible in terminally differentiated macrophages, which constitute...

A plethora of different electronic and optoelectronic devices have been developed lately, for biosensing applications (e.g., label-free, fast, easier to operate) based on a detecting interface accommodating the biorecognition elements, anchored by thiolate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) gold surface. Here, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) characterization anti-p24 SAMs is performed investigate...

CD4(+) lymphocyte count and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 RNA level are useful for determining when to initiate antiretroviral therapy but are not used widely in developing countries due to the high cost. Heat-denatured protein 24 (p24) antigen is an inexpensive assay that predicts disease progression among persons with advanced disease but has not been assessed among persons with e...

The objective of this study was to extend our previous research and to further characterize the humoral immune responses against HIV-1 p24, gp41 and the specific peptides carrying the immunodominant epitopes (IDEs) that react with human serum samples from HIV-1-infected individuals in China. We found that the majority (90.45%, 180/199) of the samples did not react with any of the three HIV-1 p2...

HIV-1 isolation was attempted on 72 individuals, including persons with known HIV infection and five without proven HIV infection but with indeterminate Western blot patterns, as well as on low-risk HIV seronegative persons. The ability to detect HIV-1 from culture supernatant by p24 antigen capture assay was evaluated by segregating patients by absolute CD4+ cell counts, clinical stage of dise...

Novel secreted and/or type I transmembrane proteins containing N-terminal signal sequences have been successfully cloned using the signal sequence trapping (SST) method. Often this involves random cloning of short 5' cDNA terminal ends into an epitope-tagged expression vector and the detection of expressed recombinant proteins on the cell surfaces of transfected cells with an antibody to the ta...