Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.16.2 (PCP)
 3,761 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Enumeration of circulating T lymphocytes is crucial in the investigation of AIDS and related conditions. The single best measure of disease progression and prognosis is the absolute number of helper/inducer T lymphocytes in the peripheral blood. Although the phenotypic identification of a particular subset reflects no direct information on the function of the population, the information provided by the analysis furnishes new insight regarding racial differences in the immune deficiency associated with AIDS. The severity of the HIV illness in the African American population, as reflected by a decrease in the absolute number of circulating CD4+ lymphocytes, was marked compared to the Caucasian population with AIDS. Consequently, the CD4/CD8 ratio was lower in the African American HIV+ population. A higher level of activated mononuclear lymphocytes and NK cells in this population may indicate active disease. The incidence of life-threatening opportunistic infections such as PCP was greater in the adult/adolescent African Americans compared to Caucasians. In contrast, PGL was found more frequently in the Caucasian participants. Although the rate of HIV infection in the adult/adolescent African American population was not different from population estimates for the area under study, the incidence in the pediatric African American population was twice the population estimates for the race. This increased rate occurred in the parent-at-risk as well as in the hemophiliac group.
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PMID:Contrasting quantitative alterations in CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes in HIV-infected African Americans compared with the Caucasian population. 257 89

The prognostic value of ocular manifestations and their correlation with immune changes in HIV-infected subjects (75 PGL, 23 ARC, and 17 AIDS) have been longitudinally studied with an average follow-up of one year (3 to 22 months). The most common ocular manifestations were retinal cotton-wool-like spots, observed in 58.8% of AIDS patients and in 76.9% of those with ocular involvement. Two of three ARC patients who showed cotton-wool-like spots developed PCP a few weeks after ophthalmoscopic examination. A close correlation between ocular changes and decrease of CD4+ lymphocytes was observed. In our opinion, these ocular manifestations are as useful an indicator as opportunistic infections or AIDS-related neoplasias in the prognosis of HIV infection.
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PMID:Retinal cotton-wool-like spots: a marker for AIDS? 335 56

Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is one of the leading causative agents of bacterial otitis media, and no vaccine has been shown to be effective against it. Three outer membrane lipoproteins of NTHi have been investigated extensively and are leading candidates for inclusion in a vaccine against this organism. Hi-PAL (P6), recombinant PCP (rPCP), and e (P4) proteins are antigenically conserved among NTHi strains and elicit bactericidal and protective antibodies. A genetic fusion of the rPCP and Hi-PAL proteins has also been reported. Mixtures of these proteins were used for active immunization experiments in the chinchilla model of otitis media. Chinchillas were immunized either with a mixture of all three lipoproteins or with the mixture of rPCP-PAL hybrid plus e protein. When these animals were challenged with a NTHi strain injected directly into the middle ears, no protection from infection or disease, as measured by otoscopy, was observed in either group. However, effusion and inflammation measured by tympanometry were significantly reduced in animals immunized with the three lipoproteins. Animals that had been immunized with either whole NTHi cells or total outer membranes and then challenged with the homologous strain were significantly protected from both infection and disease, as determined by tympanometry and otoscopy. Unlike other animals antisera, chinchilla antisera against the purified proteins had no bactericidal activity against NTHi but did fix complement on the cell surface. Thus, the chinchilla immune responses to mixtures of these lipoproteins differ from the immune responses observed in other animal species. Further evaluation of these proteins for their vaccine potential remains to be done.
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PMID:Evaluation of mixtures of purified Haemophilus influenzae outer membrane proteins in protection against challenge with nontypeable H. influenzae in the chinchilla otitis media model. 847 84