BACKGROUND geno2pheno[coreceptor] is a bioinformatic method for genotypic tropism determination (GTD) which has been extensively validated. OBJECTIVES GTD can be affected by sequencing/base-calling variability and unreliable representation of minority populations in Sanger bulk sequencing. This study aims at quantifying the robustness of geno2pheno[coreceptor] with respect to these issues. GT...

HIV-1 pathogenesis is intimately linked with microbial infections and innate immunity during all stages of the disease. While the impact of microbial-derived products in transmission of R5-using virus to CD4(+) T cells by dendritic cells (DCs) has been addressed before, very limited data are available on the effect of such compounds on DC-mediated dissemination of X4-tropic variant. Here, we pr...

OBJECTIVE Characterization of HIV-1 sequences in newly infected individuals is important for elucidating the mechanisms of viral sexual transmission. We report the identification of transmitted/founder viruses in eight pairs of HIV-1 sexually-infected patients enrolled at the time of primary infection ("recipients") and their transmitting partners ("donors"). METHODS Using a single genome-amp...

We identify through their X-ray spectra one certain (W37) and two probable (W17 and X4) quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries (qLMXBs) containing neutron stars in a long Chandra X-ray exposure of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, in addition to the two previously known qLMXBs. W37’s spectrum is dominated by a blackbody-like component consistent with radiation from the hydrogen atmosphere of a 10 km ...

Comparisons between different phenotypic and sequence-based bioniformatic methods for coreceptor usage prediction were performed to establish the role and variation of syncytium-inducing (SI) HIV-1 phenotype on CCR5 and CXCR4 coreceptor usage along the course of vertical infection. Thirty-one SI HIV-1 isolates were studied (12 from the acute and 19 from the chronic stage). Infection capacity de...

The use of CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) and CC chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) by X4 and R5 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) envelopes (Env) influences HIV cytopathicity. Here, we have evaluated the role of CCR5 and gp41 in Env-induced cell death occurring during the contacts of uninfected, primary cells with MOLT cells infected with different R5 and X4 HIV isolates. As reported for X4-Env, R...

environment assigning intervals to program variables. Writing X = {x1 ← �1� � � � � x� ← ��} for the function X mapping x� to �� such that X (x�) = ��, � = 1� � � � � �, the interval invariance equations would be 4 One of the 64 bits is used for garbage collection. 12 P. C�����   X1 = {x ← [min_int� max_int]} X2 = {x ← [1� 1] � L X3(x) = ∅ ? ∅ : let [�� �] = X3(x) in [min(� + 1� ma...

BACKGROUND Genetic variability is a major feature of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and is considered the key factor frustrating efforts to halt the HIV epidemic. A proper understanding of HIV-1 genomic diversity is a fundamental prerequisite for proper epidemiology, genetic diagnosis, and successful drugs and vaccines design. Here, we report on the partial and near full-length gen...

The therapeutic potential of tonsil-derived mesenchymal stem cells (TMSC) prepared from human tonsillar tissue has been studied in animal models for several diseases such as hepatic injury, hypoparathyroidism, diabetes and muscle dystrophy. In this study, we examined the therapeutic effects of TMSC in a dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis model. TMSC were injected in DSS-induced coliti...

CXCR4 is a chemokine receptor that plays key roles with its specific ligand, CXCL12, in stem cell homing and immune trafficking. It is also used as a coreceptor by some HIV-1 strains (X4 strains), whereas other strains (R5 strains) use an alternative coreceptor, CCR5. X4 strains mainly emerge at late stages of the infection and are linked to disease progression. Two isoforms of this coreceptor ...