Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0019693 (HIV)
 170,526 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We report here a human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) recombinant ribonuclease H (RNase H) domain engineered to contain an N-terminal tag for its isolation by affinity chromatography. The purified protein is active in hydrolyzing RNA-DNA hybrids in two separate in vitro assay systems. In light of recent reports of similar HIV-1 RNase H domains which were enzymatically inactive (Becerra, S. P., Clore, G. M., Gronenborn, A. M., Karlstrom, A. R., Stahl, S. J., Wilson, S.M., and Wingfield, P.T. (1990) FEBS Lett. 270, 76-80; Hostomsky, Z., Hostomska, Z., Hudson, G. O., Moomaw, E. W., and Nodes, B. R. (1991) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 88, 1148-1152), our results suggest that a stretch of 20-30 residues immediately upstream of the polymerase-RNase H junction (residues 440-441 of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase) may be required for productive binding and alignment of the hybrid RNA-DNA substrate. The active HIV-1 RNase H domain is suitable for structural analysis, thereby providing a unique active molecule to better understand the structural basis for the functional organization of RNase associated with the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase.
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PMID:A recombinant ribonuclease H domain of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase that is enzymatically active. 171 68

Patterns of HIV infection and IV drug use in 697 Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey, 1986-1987 Medical Examiner (ME) cases, aged 15-59 years, were examined. All cases had toxicology tests for drugs and had been autopsied. Postmortem stored sera were blind-tested and confirmed for the presence of HIV-1-antibody by the New Jersey Department of Health. All cases and IV drug users were dichotomized according to the presence/absence of HIV-1-antibody and were then analyzed for differences in demographic and postmortem characteristics. Subjects were predominantly Black men aged 30-44 years; the 119 HIV(+) cases were even more likely to be Black or Hispanic and in the 30-44 age group. Evidence of IV drug use and HIV(+) status were very highly correlated; 86 of 181 IV drug users were HIV(+). There was a low rate of suicide among HIV(+) cases and IV drug users. Only 3 of 63 suicide victims were HIV(+), and they were the only IV drug users whose manner of death was certified as suicide. Cases with toxicology findings of both heroin and cocaine were most likely to be HIV(+), followed in order by those with heroin or cocaine alone present. Cocaine alone was the illicit drug most often present in toxicology tests on all cases. Among IV drug users, heroin with cocaine was most often present.
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PMID:HIV infection and i.v. drug use: medical examiner cases in Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey. 821 94

New Jersey State Superior Court Judge Jose L. Fuentes has ruled unconstitutional a state law allowing victims of sexual assault to require their accused attackers to be tested for HIV. Fuentes says the 1993 law intrudes on defendants' right to privacy and constitutes an illegal search and seizure while leaving the victim with no useful information about her own HIV status. The decision resulted from a case involving an attack on a mentally retarded 10-year-old Hudson County girl by three boys, ages 14 and 15. The boys were charged with aggravated sexual assault by forcing oral and anal sex on the girl. The prosecution moved to have the boys tested for HIV under terms of the 1993 state law. On behalf of the boys, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that the testing amounted to an unconstitutional search and seizure. In reaching his decision, Fuentes relied on defense testimony from experts in the field of HIV and sexual assault, who testified that the victim would receive little useful information from the HIV-antibody tests. The judge found that the state law involved a substantial intrusion into the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. A prosecutor for the case plans to appeal the decision.
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PMID:Judge voids N.J. law allowing testing of rape defendants. 1136 2

Efficient packaging of genomic RNA into new HIV-1 virus particles requires that nucleocapsid domains of precursor proteins bind the SL3 tetraloop (G317-G-A-G320) from the 5'-untranslated region. This paper presents the affinities of 35 RNA variants of SL3 for the mature 55mer NC protein, as measured by fluorescence quenching of tryptophan-37 in the protein by nucleobases. The 1:1 complexes that form in 0.2 M NaCl have dissociation constants ranging from 8 nM (GGUG) to 20 microM (GAUA). The highly conserved (GGAG) sequence for the wild type is not the most stable (K(d) = 28 nM), suggesting that other selective pressures beyond the stability of the complex must be satisfied. The leading requirement for strong interaction is for G320, followed closely by G318. Replacing either with U, A, or C reduces affinity by a factor of 15-120. NC-domains from multiple proteins combine to recognize unpaired G(2)-loci, where two guanines are in close proximity. We have previously measured affinities of the NC protein for the important stem-loops of the major packaging domain [Shubsda, M. F., Paoletti, A. C., Hudson, B. S., and Borer, P. N. (2002) Biochemistry 41, 5276-82]. Comparison with the present work shows that the nature of the stem also modulates NC-RNA interactions. Placing the G(2)-loci from the apical SL2 or SL1 loops on the SL3 stem increases affinity by a factor of 2-3, while placing the SL4 loop on the SL3 stem reduces affinity 50-fold. These results are interesting in the context of RNA-protein interaction, as well as for the discovery of antiNC agents for AIDS therapy.
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PMID:Affinities of the nucleocapsid protein for variants of SL3 RNA in HIV-1. 1248 83

One hundred and thirty-four health professionals read one of 12 fictional case histories in which the patient was diagnosed as being either HIV- or Hepatitis B-positive. For each diagnosis infection was attributed to sexual contact, IV drug use, or a transfusion of contaminated blood. Within each diagnostic category, and for each source of infection, the patient was identified as either heterosexual or homosexual. Although homophobia has been suggested as a major contributor to negative attitudes toward people with AIDS, the present results remained significant even after homophobia, as measured by Hudson and Ricketts (1980), had been controlled for statistically. Regardless of disease, patients infected through IV drug use or sexual contact were seen as equally culpable and more responsible for their condition than those infected by transfusion. HIV, but not Hepatitis B, patients infected by sex or IV drug use were perceived as having less moral integrity than those infected by transfusion. Source of infection also influenced respondents' desire for close personal interaction. Negativity toward particular patient groups based merely on information about patient lifestyles was clearly demonstrated and it is suggested that negative attitudes toward people with AIDS may be a reflection of negative attitudes toward sexuality generally, rather than homosexuality.
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PMID:Determination of health-care workers' attitudes toward people with AIDS. 1614 86

Star celebrities such as Rock Hudson, Freddie Mercury, Magic Johnson, and Isaac Asimov have unfortunately something in common: they were all victims of the HIV global pandemic. Since then HIV infection has become considered a pandemic disease, and it is regarded as a priority in healthcare worldwide. It is ranked as the first cause of death among young people in industrialized countries, and it is recognized as a public healthcare problem due to its human, social, mass media, and economic impact. Incorporation of new and highly active antiretroviral treatment, available since 1996 for HIV/AIDS treatment, has provoked a radical change in the disease pattern, as well as in the impact on patient survival and quality of life. The pharmaceutical industry's contribution, based on the research for more active new drugs, has been pivotal. Mortality rates have decreased significantly in 20 years by 50% and now AIDS is considered a chronic and controlled disease. In this review we have studied the impact of HAART treatment on infected patients, allowing them to maintain their status as active workers and the decreased absenteeism from work derived from this, contributing ultimately to overall social wealth and, thus, to economic growth. Furthermore, an analysis of the impact on healthcare costs, quality of life per year, life per year gained, cost economic savings and cost opportunity among other parameters has shown that society and governments are gaining major benefits from the inclusion of antiretroviral therapies in HIV/AIDS patients.
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PMID:Socio-economic impact of antiretroviral treatment in HIV patients. An economic review of cost savings after introduction of HAART. 1952 48

The coalescent with recombination is a very useful tool in molecular population genetics. Under this framework, genealogies often represent the evolution of the substitution unit, and because of this, the few coalescent algorithms implemented for the simulation of coding sequences force recombination to occur only between codons. However, it is clear that recombination is expected to occur most often within codons. Here we have developed an algorithm that can evolve coding sequences under an ancestral recombination graph that represents the genealogies at each nucleotide site, thereby allowing for intracodon recombination. The algorithm is a modification of Hudson's coalescent in which, in addition to keeping track of events occurring in the ancestral material that reaches the sample, we need to keep track of events occurring in ancestral material that does not reach the sample but that is produced by intracodon recombination. We are able to show that at typical substitution rates the number of nonsynonymous changes induced by intracodon recombination is small and that intracodon recombination does not generally result in inflated estimates of the overall nonsynonymous/synonymous substitution ratio (omega). On the other hand, recombination can bias the estimation of omega at particular codons, resulting in apparent rate variation among sites and in the spurious identification of positively selected sites. Importantly, in this case, allowing for variable synonymous rates across sites greatly reduces the false-positive rate and recovers statistical power. Finally, coalescent simulations with intracodon recombination could be used to better represent the evolution of nuclear coding genes or fast-evolving pathogens such as HIV-1.We have implemented this algorithm in a computer program called NetRecodon, freely available at http://darwin.uvigo.es.
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PMID:Coalescent simulation of intracodon recombination. 1993 76