[Evolution of HIV-1 drug resistance in patients failing combination antiretroviral therapy].

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evolution of genotypic drug resistance prevalence in treatment-failing patients in Shenzhen. METHODS: Peripheral venous blood samples were collected from 41 AIDS patients whom failing combination antiretroviral therapy, and were amplified by nested PCR; then the amplified fragments were sequenced and analyzed. RESULTS: Partial pol sequences of 38 samples were successfully amplified, and 3 samples have not found any mutations in their pol sequences. K103N, G190A, Y181C, K101P, M184V, D67N, K70R, T215Y and K219 were most common mutations. According to the genotypic analysis, 100% of the patients (35/35) showed high and intermediate level resistance to nevirapine (NVP) and efavirenz (EFV); above 50% of the patients showed high and intermediate level resistance to zidovudine (AZT), lamivudine (3TC), stavudine (D4T) and didanosine (DDI); only a few patients showed intermediate and low level drug resistance to protease inhibitors (PIs). Patients whom take D4T + DDI + NVP regimens were most common to appear drug mutation. CONCLUSIONS: The high prevalence of drug resistance to NNRTIs and NRTIs among patients failing combination antiretroviral therapy in Shenzhen. That is the main reason for treatment failure in AIDS patients. Now most of mutations were detected against NNRTIs and NRTIs, only a few against PIs. Our finding suggested that a second-line antiretroviral therapy regimens is needed among the patients failing therapy and the boosted-PIs maybe are good choice.

Multifunctional Fe3O4@polydopamine core-shell nanocomposites for intracellular mRNA detection and imaging-guided photothermal therapy.

Multifunctional nanocomposites have the potential to integrate sensing, diagnostic, and therapeutic functions into a single nanostructure. Herein, we synthesize Fe3O4@polydopamine core-shell nanocomposites (Fe3O4@PDA NCs) through an in situ self-polymerization method. Dopamine, a melanin-like mimic of mussel adhesive proteins, can self-polymerize to form surface-adherent polydopamine (PDA) films onto a wide range of materials including Fe3O4 nanoparticles used here. In such nanocomposites, PDA provides a number of advantages, such as near-infrared absorption, high fluorescence quenching efficiency, and a surface for further functionalization with biomolecules. We demonstrate the ability of the Fe3O4@PDA NCs to act as theranostic agents for intracellular mRNA detection and multimodal imaging-guided photothermal therapy. This work would stimulate interest in the use of PDA as a useful material to construct multifunctional nanocomposites for biomedical applications.

[Loss of the balance between Th17 and Th1 populations in HIV/AIDS patients].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the Th17/Th1 response in HIV infected patients and the mutual relationship between the response of Th17 and Th1. METHODS: 38 chronic HIV infected patients as well as 24 healthy volunteers were performed in this study. The patients were divided into two groups, one group before treatment, the other after therapy. The whole blood intracellular cytokine staining was used, samples detected by BD FACSCanto, after that, the expression of CD4+ IL-17+ T cell and CD4 IFN-gamma+ T cell were analyzed by FACSDiva software and lastly compared the differences among different groups. RESULTS: The expression of CD4+ IL-17+ T cell in naive-therapy patients were significantly lower than that of the healthy controls (1.14 +/- 0.7)9% vs (3.98 +/- 1.14)%, P = 0.000, but increased remarkably after HARRT(highly antiretroviral treatment) (2.22 +/- 1.00)%, P = 0.001; however there were no significant differences in the expression of CD4+ IFN-gamma+ T cell before and after therapy (34.35 +/- 24.38)% vs (42.10 +/- 15.57%), also with the healthy control (P = 0.383). The frequency of CD4 IL-17+ T cell was positively correlated with CD4+ T counts (R = 0.345, P = 0.034), but no significant correlations was observed between the expression of CD4+ IFN-gamma T cell and CD4+ T counts (R = -0.247, P = 0.136). CONCLUSION: The infection of HIV virus down-regulated Th17 immune response and disturbed the balances between Th17 and Th1 evidently in human. Th17 response may play an important role in the pathogenesis of HIV infection.