CIITA gene polymorphism (rs3087456) in systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis: A population-based cohort study.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are influenced by genetic variants in immune system HLA genes. The Class II Major Histocompatibility Complex Transactivator (CIITA) is an important co-activator of the HLA transcriptional complex; the single nucleotide variant (SNV) rs3087456 localized in the gene promoter region (-168 A/G) has been reported as able to modify its transcription level. In our study, we assessed CIITA rs3087456 SNV in 1,044 Brazilians from two Brazilian regions (Northeast and South) to verify the association with susceptibility and clinical manifestations of (SLE) and (RA) using TaqMan SNP Genotyping Assays System. We observed a protection for a recessive model (GG x AA+AG) for RA susceptibility and increased risk for erosion development in AG genotype patients. No significant association was observed for SLE susceptibility; however, we observed significant increased risk for Class IV and V nephritis development in G allele and GG genotype patients. In conclusion, we showed the contribution of CIITA rs3087456 to SLE or RA clinical features and RA susceptibility in the studied populations.

Dendritic Cell-Based Immunotherapies to Fight HIV: How Far from a Success Story? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

The scientific community still faces the challenge of developing strategies to cure HIV-1. One of these pursued strategies is the development of immunotherapeutic vaccines based on dendritic cells (DCs), pulsed with the virus, that aim to boost HIV-1 specific immune response. We aimed to review DCs-based therapeutic vaccines reports and critically assess evidence to gain insights for the improvement of these strategies. We performed a systematic review, followed by meta-analysis and meta-regression, of clinical trial reports. Twelve studies were selected for meta-analysis. The experimental vaccines had low efficiency, with an overall success rate around 38% (95% confidence interval = 26.7%-51.3%). Protocols differed according to antigen choice, DC culture method, and doses, although multivariate analysis did not show an influence of any of them on overall success rate. The DC-based vaccines elicited at least some immunogenicity, that was sometimes associated with plasmatic viral load transient control. The protocols included both naïve and antiretroviral therapy (ART)-experienced individuals, and used different criteria for assessing vaccine efficacy. Although the vaccines did not work as expected, they are proof of concept that immune responses can be boosted against HIV-1. Protocol standardization and use of auxiliary approaches, such as latent HIV-1 reservoir activation and patient genomics are paramount for fine-tuning future HIV-1 cure strategies.

A rare loss-of-function genetic mutation suggest a role of dermcidin deficiency in hidradenitis suppurativa pathogenesis.

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with a multifactorial aetiology that involves a strict interplay between genetic factors, immune dysregulation and lifestyle. Familial forms represent around 40% of total HS cases and show an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance of the disease. In this study, we conducted a whole-exome sequence analysis on an Italian family of 4 members encompassing a vertical transmission of HS. Focusing on rare damaging variants, we identified a rare insertion of one nucleotide (c.225dupA:p.A76Sfs*21) in the DCD gene encoding for the antimicrobial peptide dermcidin (DCD) that was shared by the proband, his affected father and his 11-years old daughter. Since several transcriptome studies have shown a significantly decreased expression of DCD in HS skin, we hypothesised that the identified frameshift insertion was a loss-of-function mutation that might be associated with HS susceptibility in this family. We thus confirmed by mass spectrometry that DCD levels were diminished in the affected members and showed that the antimicrobial activity of a synthetic DCD peptide resulting from the frameshift mutation was impaired. In order to define the consequences related to a decrease in DCD activity, skin microbiome analyses of different body sites were performed by comparing DCD mutant and wild type samples, and results highlighted significant differences between the groins of mutated and wild type groups. Starting from genetic analysis conducted on an HS family, our findings showed, confirming previous transcriptome results, the potential role of the antimicrobial DCD peptide as an actor playing a crucial part in the etio-pathogenesis of HS and in the maintenance of the skin's physiological microbiome composition; so, we can hypothesise that DCD could be used as a novel target for personalised therapeutic approach.

In silico analysis of molecular interactions between HIV-1 glycoprotein gp120 and TNF receptors.

Proinflammatory microenvironmental is crucial for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) pathogenesis. The viral glycoprotein 120 (gp120) must interact with the CD4+ T cell chemokine receptor (CCR5) and a co-receptor C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) to let the virus entry into the host cells. However, the interaction of the viral particle with other cell surface receptors is mandatory for its attachment and subsequently entry. Tumor Necrosis Factor receptor type I (TNFR1), type II (TNFR2) and Fas are a superfamily of transmembrane proteins involved in canonical inflammatory pathway and cell death by apoptosis as responses against viral pathogens. In our study, we performed an in silico evaluation of the molecular interactions between viral protein gp120 and TNF receptors (TNFR1, TNFR2 and Fas). Protein structures were retrieved from Protein Databank (PDB), and Molecular Docking and dynamics were performed using ClusPro 2.0 server and GROMACS software, respectively. We observed that gp120 is able to bind TNFR1, TNFR2 and Fas receptors, although only the TNFR2-gp120 complex demonstrated to produce a stable and durable binding. Our findings suggest that gp120 may act as an agonist to TNF-α and also function as an attachment factor in HIV-1 entry process. These molecular interaction by gp120 may be the key to HIV-1 immunopathogenesis. In conclusion, gp120 may stimulate pro-inflammatory and apoptotic signaling transduction pathways mediated by TNFR2 and may act as an attachment factor retaining HIV-1 viral particles on the host cell surface.

Mutational landscape of Zika virus strains worldwide and its structural impact on proteins.

Zika virus (ZIKV) has spread globally and has been linked to the onset of microcephaly and other brain abnormalities. The ZIKV genome consists of an ~10.7 kb positive-stranded RNA molecule that encodes three structural (C, prM and E) and seven nonstructural (5'-NS1-NS2A-NS2B-NS3- NS4A/2K-NS4B-NS5-3') proteins. In this work, we looked for genetic variants in 485 ZIKV complete genomes from GenBank (NCBI) and performed a computational systematic approach using MAESTROweb server to assess the impact of nonsynonymous mutations in ZIKV proteins (C, M, E, NS1, NS2A, NS2B-NS3 protease, NS3 helicase and NS5). Then, we merged the data and correlated it with the phenotypic reports of ZIKV circulating strains. The sensitivity profile of the proteins showed 96 mutational hotspots. We found 22 relevant mutations in proteins C (I80T), NS2A (I34M/T/V, I45V, I80T/V, L113F, A117V, I118V, L128P, V143A, T151A, M199I/V, R207K and L208I) and NS3 helicase (D436G, Y498H, R525K, Q528R and R583K) of the circulating strains. Our analysis exploited the impact of nonsynonymous mutations on ZIKV proteins, their structural and functional insights. The results presented here could advance our current understanding on ZIKV proteins functions and pathogenesis.

ZIKA virus entry mechanisms in human cells.

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an enveloped, mosquito-borne Flavivirus, which infects cells through clathrin-mediated endocytosis and fusion employing acidic endosomes. Cell entry is mostly mediated by the viral glycoprotein E, although incomplete particle maturation enables viral protein prM and anionic lipids present in the viral membrane to mediate this process. Incomplete proteolytic maturation results in a set of highly heterogeneous particles. These heterogeneous and dynamic infectious particles offer a variety of possible receptor interaction sites on their surfaces, thus contributing to the wide range of cells susceptible to ZIKV as well as to variation in tissue tropism. This review addresses recent advances in the understanding of ZIKV entry process into cells and put together fundamental questions about viral replication, maturation and host-cell interactions.

CUL5 and APOBEC3G Polymorphisms are Partially Implicated in HIV-1 Infection and Antiretroviral Therapy in a Brazilian Population.

BACKGROUND: Host restriction factors are cellular proteins able to diminish or block viral replication in a cell-specific way. OBJECTIVE AND METHOD: We evaluated the distribution of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in APOBEC3G (rs3736685, rs2294367) and CUL5 (rs7117111, rs7103534, rs11212495) genes, among 264 HIV-1 infected (HIV-1+) and 259 unexposed- uninfected individuals from Northeast Brazil, looking for a possible association with susceptibility to HIV-1 infection, viral load during treatment, CD4+ T cell count and therapeutic success of the antiretroviral treatment. RESULTS: The rs11212495 CUL5 G allele and the CUL5 rs7103534-rs7117111 CG haplotype were more frequent among unexposed-uninfected than in HIV-1+ individuals, suggesting an association with a lower HIV-1 infection susceptibility. The APOBEC3G rs2294367 G/C genotype correlated with delayed viral load suppression. Our results showed a great heterogeneity in relation to the literature findings, possibly due to ethnic differences among the studied populations, sample size used in the studies and, also, to the type of controls, i.e. in our study used unexposed-uninfected rather than exposed-uninfected individuals (rare and considered gold standard for susceptibility studies). CONCLUSION: Our findings report genetic variants possibly associated with susceptibility to HIV-1 infection (CUL5 rs11212495, rs7103534, rs7117111) and partial viral load control (APOBEC3G rs2294367). Replica studies performed on higher number of subjects are envisaged to confirm our results.

Frequency of the CCR5-delta32 allele in Brazilian populations: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis.

The CCR5 is a chemokine receptor widely expressed by several immune cells that are engaged in inflammatory responses. Some populations have individuals exhibiting a 32bp deletion in the CCR5 gene (CCR5-delta32) that produces a truncated non-functional protein not expressed on the cell surface. This polymorphism, known to be associated with susceptibility to infectious and inflammatory diseases, such as osteomyelitis, pre-eclampsia, systemic lupus erythematous, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and HIV/AIDS, is more commonly found in European populations with average frequency of 10%. However, it is also possible to observe a significant frequency in other world populations, such as the Brazilian one. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of CCR5-delta32 genetic association studies in Brazilian populations throughout the country to estimate the frequency of this polymorphism. We also compared CCR5-delta32 frequencies across Brazilian regions. The systematic literature reviewed studies involving delta32 allele in Brazilian populations published from 1995 to 2015. Among the reviewed literature, 25 studies including 30 Brazilian populations distributed between the North, Northeast, South and Southeast regions were included in our meta-analysis. We observed an overall allelic frequency of 4% (95%-CI, 0.03-0.05), that was considered moderate and, notably, higher than some European populations, such as Cyprus (2.8%), Italy (3%) and Greece (2.4%). Regarding the regional frequency comparisons between North-Northeast (N-NE) and South-Southeast (S-SE) regions, we observed an allelic frequency of 3% (95%-CI, 0.02-0.04) and 4% (95%-CI, 0.03-0.05), respectively. The populations from S-SE regions had a slightly higher CCR5-delta32 frequency than N-NE regions (OR=1.41, p=0.002). Although there are several studies about the CCR5-delta32 polymorphism and its effect on the immune response of some infectious diseases, this report is the first meta-analysis study that provides a descriptive study of the distribution of CCR5-delta32 allele in Brazilian population.

Meta-analysis and time series modeling allow a systematic review of primary HIV-1 drug-resistant prevalence in Latin America and Caribbean.

Here we review the prevalence of HIV-1 primary drug resistance in Latin America and Caribbean using meta-analysis as well as time-series modeling. We also discuss whether there could be a drawback to HIV/AIDS programs due to drug resistance in Latin America and Caribbean in the next years. We observed that, although some studies report low or moderate primary drug resistance prevalence in Caribbean countries, this evidence needs to be updated. In other countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, the prevalence of drug resistance appears to be rising. Mutations conferring resistance against reverse transcriptase inhibitors were the most frequent in the analyzed populations (70% of all mutational events). HIV-1 subtype B was the most prevalent in Latin America and the Caribbean, although subtype C and B/F recombinants have significant contributions in Argentina and Brazil. Thus, we suggest that primary drug resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean could have been underestimated. Clinical monitoring should be improved to offer better therapy, reducing the risk for HIV-1 resistance emergence and spread, principally in vulnerable populations, such as men who have sex with men transmission group, sex workers and intravenous drug users.