Etiologia da anemia em pessoas infectadas com HIV / Anemia etiology in HIV-infected people

O HIV é o causador da AIDS, doença que representa um dos grandes problemas de saúde pública em todo o mundo. Apesar de avanços na terapia antirretroviral no sentido de aumentar a expectativa de vida dos indivíduos infectados, as alterações hematológicas, como a anemia, acompanham o curso clínico da doença. Essa condição, normalmente multifatorial, pode estar presente em qualquer fase da doença e afeta diretamente o prognóstico e a qualidade de vida do indivíduo infectado. Este artigo apresenta informações do surgimento do processo anêmico com base nas principais causas encontradas na literatura.

The human immunodeficiency virus is the cause of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, a disease that represents one of the major public health problems worldwide. In spite of advances in antiretroviral therapy that increase patients' life expectancy, hematological changes, such as anemia, follow the clinical course of the disease. This commonly multifactorial condition can be found in any phase of the disease and directly affects the prognosis and quality of life of patients. This article presents information on the emergence of the anemic process based on the main causes found in the literature.

An optimized nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) approach allows detection and characterization of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) env and gag genes from clinical samples.

The needs for development and/or improvement of molecular approaches for microorganism detection and characterization such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are of high interest due their sensitivity and specificity when compared to traditional microbiological techniques. Considering the worldwide importance of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection, it is essential that such approaches consider the genetic variability of the virus, the heterogeneous nature of the clinical samples, the existence of contaminants and inhibitors, and the consequent needs for standardization in order to guarantee the reproducibility of the methods. In this work we describe a nested PCR assay targeting HIV-1 virus gag and env genes, allowing specific and sensitive diagnosis and further direct characterization of clinical samples. The method described herein was tested on clinical samples and allowed the detection of HIV-1 presence in all samples tested for the gag gene and 90.9% for the env gene, revealing sensitivities of 1 fg and 100 fg, respectively. Also, no cross-reactions were observed with DNA from infected and noninfected patients and the method allowed detection of the env and gag genes on an excess of 10(8) and 10(4) of human deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), respectively. Furthermore, it was possible to direct sequence all amplified products, which allowed the sub typing of the virus in clinical samples.

Molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 in Santa Catarina State confirms increases of subtype C in Southern Brazil.

Recent studies have demonstrated an increased prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) subtype C in southern Brazil. Although Santa Catarina State (SC) is located in this area and presents one of the country's highest incidences of HIV/AIDS, knowledge on the molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 in such State is lacking. The aim of this study was to investigate the HIV-1 molecular diversity and epidemiological profile of HIV-1-infected patients from SC. DNA samples were PCR amplified and HIV-1 subtypes were determined using both env and gag genes by direct sequencing. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that 48% were subtype C and 23% were subtype B. Possible recombinant forms were observed for both B/C (23%) and B/F (6%) subtypes. Our results, for the first time, identifies HIV-1 subtype C as a major clade circulating in SC and contributes to the understanding of HIV epidemics in the country by confirming the epidemic spread of the HIV-1 subtype C in southern Brazil.